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FishBulbia posted:I think it's not to much to speculate that the Ukrainian military is basically in disarray right now. Basically every known hq and base has been leveled. https://twitter.com/olgatokariuk/status/1496754010992246784?s=20&t=kmrHSmhKp3-vLb99jdlt5A You've also generalized non stop and been wrong before.
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Feb 24, 2022 08:49
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Russia would smirkingly announce the utter collapse of the Kiev juntas homonazi military even if Zelensky had summoned Voltron to one sidedly massacre their armored columns. It's fog of war atm.
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Feb 24, 2022 08:50
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Kirios posted:If the Dow Future is any indication we are gonna be in for a bloodbath tomorrow. Yeah I was just looking at that as well. The market is divorced from reality though and this is nothing more than people seeing scary headlines and deciding that fear automatically equals sell-off. Either this stays isolated to Ukraine and Russia and Belarus which means no real reason for any global economic disruption, or it doesn't stay isolated and well you know we are all kind of dead so I guess my ticker is going to melt or something. Kind of shocked that all this wasn't already priced in a month ago. Personally I will be buying calls this week at some point 🤷♂️
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Feb 24, 2022 08:50
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Engaging the full strength Russian army at the border would have been suicide. Ukraine's plan is probably something along the lines of: 1. Allow Russian forces to advance at first 2. Progressively attrition them as they get deeper into Ukraine 3. Counterattack when the Russians have overextended
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Feb 24, 2022 08:50
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FishBulbia posted:I think it's not to much to speculate that the Ukrainian military is basically in disarray right now. Basically every known hq and base has been leveled. What? You post some wild claims man. There are some videos floating around right now, but we have no info other than that.
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Feb 24, 2022 08:51
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MiddleOne posted:I wonder how long this actually been planned, at the surface level it appears to be an extraordinary amount of coordination. I've always assumed major powers have extensive plans for all kinds of unlikely scenarios on file, let alone an invasion of the country you've had an eye on for over a decade
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Feb 24, 2022 08:51
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VostokProgram posted:Engaging the full strength Russian army at the border would have been suicide. Ukraine's plan is probably something along the lines of: 4. post their encirclement of all Russian forces to the Hearts of Iron IV reddit
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Feb 24, 2022 08:53
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Knightsoul posted:Spheres of influence are not relics of the past, they are still in effect and always will be. The hour-long speech Putin gave on the 22nd or so in response to his NSC cabinet meeting makes it very obvious that he sees Ukraine as not a sovereign state but instead a client state owing any sovereignty it had to 'gifts' it received from the USSR and Tsars. The only way Ukraine would have been safe from Russian aggression since Putin came to power is effectively acting as a puppet/client state a-la Belarus, and probably rolling over to Russian land grabs if Moscow felt like it. Russian state media was throwing around a map similar to this one in the past few days echoing his points:  I was going to write a longer post about why the whole NATO argument is an absolute poo poo take and a red herring while there are literal Russian boots on the ground in Ukraine but this poster above me said it better Shes Not Impressed posted:It's best not to engage posters about the NATO argument when it's straight from the Kremlin and Putin has invaded Ukraine already.
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Feb 24, 2022 08:53
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Shes Not Impressed posted:It's best not to engage posters about the NATO argument when it's straight from the Kremlin and Putin has invaded Ukraine already. Yeah, I’m not blaming the victim (Ukraine), we’re blaming the people (NATO) who have been dragging this situation out for so long. NATO started Intensified Dialogue in 2005 to start the process of Ukrainian accession (this was under Yushchenko). I understand there’s plenty of Russian apologists, especially among terminally online leftists. A tragic number of people I’d otherwise consider myself close to ideologically are completely incapable of separating their criticism of the US (especially) from the actions of other states. By which I mean they ironically support, in a knee jerk manner, states opposed to the US for the simple fact that they’re opposed. It’s absurd and it’s embarrassing. But don’t conflate discussion of the actual events and actors leading to this tragic situation as some kind of bullshit apology tour. It’s not. It isn’t difficult to tell apologists apart from those who appreciate and want to discuss the larger geopolitical situation that led to Russia’s criminal actions. While certain Ukrainian governments were actively working on NATO accession, the Ukrainian people themselves were largely opposed to joining NATO until 2014, by which time it was too late.
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Feb 24, 2022 08:53
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i don't buy that ukranian forces are pulling some grand strategic maneuvering. large scale troop movements when russian air supremacy has never been in question seems like a terrible plan. ukraine only called up military reserves last night, there's no way they've even begun assembling in any coherent manner. everyone acknowledged that it was not an even matchup from the beginning. who knows what's going on in the fog of war, but i would not be surprised if this is over fairly quickly i just hope the fighting largely avoids major population centers
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Feb 24, 2022 08:53
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Shes Not Impressed posted:https://twitter.com/olgatokariuk/status/1496754010992246784?s=20&t=kmrHSmhKp3-vLb99jdlt5A IDK if you missed it but Russian tanks are literally encircling Kharkiv as we speak. I'm not saying that the tide won't turn but all indications point to the military campaign quickly achieving its tactical objectives. That doesn't mean that it'll work out for russia in the long or short term, Iraq was initially a tactical success for the Americans.
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Feb 24, 2022 08:53
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Majorian posted:The problem is, the organization's leadership did make that promise, with the full knowledge that France and Germany would veto it. That was, as they say in diplomatic circles, a dick move. Did you even read the date on that? April 2008. Months before the invasion of Georgia and six years before the occupation of Crimea. This is more than completely irrelevant to bring up now. It is outright misleading. Russia invaded and sliced off bits of Georgia and Ukraine since that time. You can attempt to justify that by pointing at a vague promise made by NATO members in early 2008, and now as a result of territorial disputes neither country is considered eligible to join NATO. That is part of why this whole war is so vile and pointless: there is no actual threat to Russia of these countries joining an alliance against Russia, that was the justification for invading both in the first place years ago. This invasion is for absolutely no good reason, other than to demonstrate that Putin can and will do it and that everyone else is powerless to stop it. It is pure political realism as demonstrated by a likely-unhinged psychopath with a revanchist grudge. NATOis guilty only of not taking Russia more seriously in the first place. Putin is doing this war purely because he knows he can get away with it and nobody who matters is willing to put their own lives on the line. Anyone who suggests responsibility on the part of NATO or Ukraine for these “escalations” is an idiot or deliberately misleading. If a few hundred thousand Russian troops bordered Poland or Germany or whatever, it doesn’t really matter who, and Putin thought he could get away with it, he would invade them. There was no specific reason to invade Ukraine and it just happens to be them because of their geographic and political vulnerability. And Putin knows nobody is willing to die in Ukraine to stop him. We are all resigned to hoping that Ukraine tires out the Russian army and satiates putin enough that he doesn’t decide to try it again. We are willing to do precisely nothing, and he is relishing the fact he is free to act however he pleases because Europe and the US have made it absolutely clear he is free to do so. Putin is a Cold War Soviet imperialist and this is his personal greatest moment: gleefully engaging in a brutal and pointless war to punish a wayward vassal and place the US in a position where it can do absolutely nothing to affect that.
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Feb 24, 2022 08:54
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FishBulbia posted:I think it's not to much to speculate that the Ukrainian military is basically in disarray right now. Basically every known hq and base has been leveled. This is something that everyone knew was going to happen for like a while now. No one is surprised that major military installations are getting hit during a military invasion. It makes graphic tiktok videos but the buildings are loving empty. The roughly bajillion shoulder launched everythings is what will dictate the pain tolerance for everyone involved. I have to assume that NLAWs and stingers have been getting handed out for free at post offices in Ukraine for a while now (this is a joke but only sort of) cr0y fucked around with this message at 08:59 on Feb 24, 2022 |
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Feb 24, 2022 08:55
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My take is that countries are selfish and they wanted to pay lip service to Ukraine but also wanted to appease Russia for cheap oil and gas so they wagged their finger for a decade without actually taking any real steps towards preventing Russia from doing exactly this. This is kind of obvious in retrospect - Western Europe is full of rich, liberal countries who believe in words and agreements and cheap gas. Putin wants power and to take back the glory of the old Russian empire that he believes the communists squandered. He believes in sharp, pointy, high explosive sticks, and using words and agreements and cheap gas to get sharper, pointier, more explodey sticks. Right now the West is standing there complaining that we need to fix this with words and Russia is saying "nah we're using guns and if you try to stop us, it's going to be your guns vs our guns" and Ukraine is yelling "loving help us you cowards" and we're just like "but words and cheap gas  "
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Feb 24, 2022 08:57
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FishBulbia posted:IDK if you missed it but Russian tanks are literally encircling Kharkiv as we speak. I'm not saying that the tide won't turn but all indications point to the military campaign quickly achieving its tactical objectives. That doesn't mean that it'll work out for russia in the long or short term, Iraq was initially a tactical success for the Americans. Tanks and cities dont mix. Mostly for the tanks.
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Feb 24, 2022 08:59
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FishBulbia posted:I think it's not to much to speculate that the Ukrainian military is basically in disarray right now. Basically every known hq and base has been leveled. You only have scattered possibly inaccurate reporting as to the state of the Ukrainian military. For all you know they evacuated key personnel and equipment to more secure areas and Ukrainian operations ability has been not affected; they knew for a while that Russia was going to invade and so possibly had time to prepare contingencies, like preparing bunkers and the like, using decoy structures and the like to bait missile and air strikes. You're basically wild mass guessing the worst possible outcome based on not really any facts; it could be days before we know for sure what's happening.
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Feb 24, 2022 09:00
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GhostofJohnMuir posted:i'm too mentally drained to weigh out what nato should or shouldn't have done to avoid this, but i think there's a glaring contradiction between "this is a tragic, yet inevitable and obvious result of nato's actions" and the common sentiment as recently as 12 hours ago that nato predictions of full-scale invasion were a laughable hoax by the western mic to gin up war hysteria. this is an event that seemed absurd to many, including me, when the white house began warning about it last year, and now after it's come to pass it's suddenly an outcome that nato politicians should have seen coming (and maybe did see coming?) for the last 20 years. 2009: The market is going to crash? Please. These morons are always predicting that the market is going to crash. The housing market is just undergoing a correction. Things will be back to normal soon. 2015: Donald Trump win the presidency? LMFAO get the gently caress out of here! The election will be Jeb Bush vs Hillary Clinton. 2020: It's the beginning of the year and the media is once again scaring us with some virus.  . I remember SARS, Bird Flu, and Ebola were all suppose to be mass epidemics. There's no way this COVID-19 amounts to anything.Everything is dead obvious in hindsight, but in the present you are surrounded with the fog of uncertainty. Things seem nonsensical until they very quickly aren't and the signs were painfully obvious. I realize it's a bit frustrating since the moderates and liberals are dogpiling leftists to even dare to question that Putin was willing to invade, but nobody batts a thousand. Take note of where you went wrong in your calculations and move on. There's also the painful fact that there are so many factors that it is at times impossible to even have an idea where the pieces will fall in any given situation.
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Feb 24, 2022 09:00
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Reminder: there's a few reliable charities you can donate to that will likely play a supporting role in the coming weeks and months in response to Putin's war crimes. If you've got some cash to spare, these orgs are worth your giving to in normal times, but especially now. Thread.FishBulbia posted:I think it's not to much to speculate that the Ukrainian military is basically in disarray right now. Basically every known hq and base has been leveled.
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Feb 24, 2022 09:01
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Cugel the Clever posted:
The account is from december, can't we just label it as a russian plant and move on? (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Feb 24, 2022 09:03
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I just want to underline how vast Ukraine is in terms of territory. Even assuming the worst case scenario for Ukraine and their military is obliterated instantly, I think it's going to take some time just to reach and establish control over a country of this size.
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Feb 24, 2022 09:04
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Half this thread was predicting an invasion for quite awhile. Hindsight is 20/20 but you dont move tanks from loving kamchatka if you arent going to use them.
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Feb 24, 2022 09:04
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https://liveuamap.com/ is back up e: vv ah ok, nvm. just refreshed and it's gone again boofhead fucked around with this message at 09:11 on Feb 24, 2022 |
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Feb 24, 2022 09:08
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boofhead posted:https://liveuamap.com/ is back up Not really, they are either getting ddos'd or just legitimately overwhelmed.
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Feb 24, 2022 09:09
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Any updates on those paratroopers/special forces that supposedly attacked Kiev airport?
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Feb 24, 2022 09:10
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VostokProgram posted:Any updates on those paratroopers/special forces that supposedly attacked Kiev airport? misinfo probably. Same with the aphib landings in odesa
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Feb 24, 2022 09:12
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cr0y posted:Not really, they are either getting ddos'd or just legitimately overwhelmed. I just got in, they are probably getting hammered with traffic.
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Feb 24, 2022 09:12
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Despera posted:Half this thread was predicting an invasion for quite awhile. Hindsight is 20/20 but you dont move tanks from loving kamchatka if you arent going to use them. Eh. It's not like they were doing anything important in Kamchatka. Moving them doesn't ruin the harvest, so why not use them for political posturing? Decades of everyone posturing at each other made assuming more of the same very reasonable. Unfortunately, we live in unreasonable times.
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Feb 24, 2022 09:14
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Rob Rockley posted:Did you even read the date on that? April 2008. Months before the invasion of Georgia and six years before the occupation of Crimea. This is more than completely irrelevant to bring up now. It is outright misleading. You are reading arguments into my post that I did not make. I am not justifying anything Putin has done, either to Ukraine or to Georgia. There is no justification. He is a warmonger. gently caress him, his kleptocratic system, and his imperialist aims. I am, however, pointing out that NATO made a promise to Ukraine that it should have known it could not keep. That was at best a terrible mistake that the Ukrainian people, who are innocent in this matter, are now paying for.
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Feb 24, 2022 09:18
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boofhead posted:https://liveuamap.com/ is back up https://twitter.com/Liveuamap
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Feb 24, 2022 09:18
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Mystic Mongol posted:Eh. It's not like they were doing anything important in Kamchatka. Moving them doesn't ruin the harvest, so why not use them for political posturing? Because its 5000 miles as the crow flies. You could posture without the massive logistical headache and money pit.
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Feb 24, 2022 09:18
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Arglebargle III posted:For what it's worth Mearsheimer has been warning everyone who will listen that this would happen if NATO didn't stop dangling membership in front of states they had no intention of admitting. The video of "Why is Ukraine the West's Fault? Featuring John Mearsheimer" on youtube was linked in the old EE thread and I will tell you why his view is bad. It is not bad because of his "realism" perspective of what is going on. It is bad because he is deliberately incomplete on his Ukrainian conflict view from a geopolitical perspective. In the video for 30 minutes he goes on how Russia has "core interests" in Ukraine while the US doesn't have "core interests" and keeps droning on about it but he never talks about Ukraine "core interests". Whether he likes it or not more than 40 million people live in Ukraine and they have a military, central government and all the other things which make it a sovereign state and he skirts that. Imagine I gave a lecture about geopolitical tensions in East Asia in the 1930s and I didn't mention the Empire of Japan, that's how dysfunctional his view is. Also Ukraine was on track to join the EU and Yanukovych, while being pro-Russia did campaign promises to continue the process of joining the EU. Until he withdrew Ukraine from the process and then joined the Russian led Eurasian Economic Union overnight without any public consultation. That action kick started Euromaidan. Budzilla fucked around with this message at 09:26 on Feb 24, 2022 |
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Feb 24, 2022 09:19
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Dwesa posted:they keep posting updates on twitter Thanks for this, I couldn’t find their Twitter on the livemap site. Keeping up with all this without an actual computer is rather difficult. Majorian posted:You are reading arguments into my post that I did not make. I am not justifying anything Putin has done, either to Ukraine or to Georgia. There is no justification. He is a warmonger. gently caress him, his kleptocratic system, and his imperialist aims. I am, however, pointing out that NATO made a promise to Ukraine that it should have known it could not keep. That was at best a terrible mistake that the Ukrainian people, who are innocent in this matter, are now paying for. This isn’t going to stop happening for a while. Most people are incredibly emotional about the situation and have no desire to engage in nuance. This entire situation (NATO and Ukraine v Russia) has been further polluted by the aggressive efforts of actual Russian apologists. It’s seemingly impossible for some people to understand we’re not blaming loving NATO for the disgusting actions of Putin, rather we’re expressing profound frustration toward NATO for maintaining disingenuous pretenses that everyone knew Putin was using to justify this poo poo. Melancholia fucked around with this message at 09:30 on Feb 24, 2022 |
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Feb 24, 2022 09:21
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Majorian posted:You are reading arguments into my post that I did not make. I am not justifying anything Putin has done, either to Ukraine or to Georgia. There is no justification. He is a warmonger. gently caress him, his kleptocratic system, and his imperialist aims. I am, however, pointing out that NATO made a promise to Ukraine that it should have known it could not keep. That was at best a terrible mistake that the Ukrainian people, who are innocent in this matter, are now paying for. So you mean NATO should have kept its obligation? by fast tracking Ukraine or ignoring the dispute over Crimea?
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Feb 24, 2022 09:25
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Rob Rockley posted:So you mean NATO should have kept its obligation? by fast tracking Ukraine or ignoring the dispute over Crimea? No, NATO should not have promised Ukraine and Georgia membership if they knew France, Germany, and probably other member-states would without a doubt veto their accession. NATO requires a unanimous vote from all member-states to accept a new member. That was never going to happen for those two countries. Majorian fucked around with this message at 09:32 on Feb 24, 2022 |
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Feb 24, 2022 09:30
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Majorian posted:You are reading arguments into my post that I did not make. I am not justifying anything Putin has done, either to Ukraine or to Georgia. There is no justification. He is a warmonger. gently caress him, his kleptocratic system, and his imperialist aims. I am, however, pointing out that NATO made a promise to Ukraine that it should have known it could not keep. That was at best a terrible mistake that the Ukrainian people, who are innocent in this matter, are now paying for. Imo the only way accepting permanent and definite absence from NATO changes what we're seeing today is if Ukraine's also otherwise willing to accept Russia looming over them with a baseball bat and a knowing smile whenever they briefly consider other decisions Russia dislikes, which well, I guess is exactly what they're going to get out of this. But I don't like it.
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Feb 24, 2022 09:34
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Majorian posted:I am, however, pointing out that NATO made a promise to Ukraine that it should have known it could not keep. That was at best a terrible mistake that the Ukrainian people, who are innocent in this matter, are now paying for. The Ukrainian people haven't acted in the last decade and a half with the mindset that they'd go hog wild screwing with Putin by democratizing, liberalizing, and Westernizing, naively thinking NATO might swoop in and save the day should Putin's bloodlust prove insatiable. No—people fought and loving died to achieve what they did because it was the right thing to do for their country. You keep infantilizing the Ukrainian people and it's disgusting.
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Feb 24, 2022 09:36
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punk rebel ecks posted:Everything is dead obvious in hindsight, but in the present you are surrounded with the fog of uncertainty. Things seem nonsensical until they very quickly aren't and the signs were painfully obvious. I realize it's a bit frustrating since the moderates and liberals are dogpiling leftists to even dare to question that Putin was willing to invade, but nobody batts a thousand. Take note of where you went wrong in your calculations and move on. From finnish perspective, following the news and discussion in the recent weeks have been really perplexing. Leftists especially in USA seem to have absolutely massive blind spots about Russia in general and Putin in specific. Modern Russia is and has been an aggressive ethnonationalist authoritarian state committing war crimes and assassinating people wherever they choose. That you would choose to give benefit of doubt to Russia seems insane. Yes I understand that CIA is bad and NATO/USA has done dumb poo poo, but these do not change the facts.
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Feb 24, 2022 09:41
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Wafflepoet posted:Thanks for this, I couldn’t find their Twitter on the livemap site. Keeping up with all this without an actual computer is rather difficult. Wasn't the closest thing to a promise they got was just a verbal statement that some day they could become nato members? No timeline, no membership action plan or whatever they're called, just a 'yeah someday' iirc macedonia was the one who got led on and baited. lowkey i think that ukraine in the last couple years was getting to a point where the circumstances for them to become a member was indeed possible in the coming couple years, barring Russia invading, of course. Honestly I think a lot of nato is probably just about as willing to fight a war over Latvia or Albania as they are over Ukraine. 2008 ukraine added basically no upside to nato and was a significant liability. Recently Ukraine was getting to the point where it would've been a significant military member of NATO (and hell, their military has been largely built up to NATO standards for the better part of the last decade). On a related note, it seems remarkable, at least to me, just how much popular sentiment there seems to be that actually we should be military confronting Russia over invading Ukraine. There seems to be a lot more will to militarily stand up to Russia than I ever would have expected. Frankly, Ukraine getting closer to EU membership I think likely pushed the timeline up more than the vague threat of hypothetical future NATO membership. Iirc the plan was to push for EU membership in like 18 months. Meanwhile the NATO stuff is largely static and not particularly time sensitive Herstory Begins Now fucked around with this message at 09:47 on Feb 24, 2022 |
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Feb 24, 2022 09:45
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bad_fmr posted:From finnish perspective, following the news and discussion in the recent weeks have been really perplexing. Leftists especially in USA seem to have absolutely massive blind spots about Russia in general and Putin in specific. Modern Russia is and has been an aggressive ethnonationalist authoritarian state committing war crimes and assassinating people wherever they choose. That you would choose to give benefit of doubt to Russia seems insane. Yes I understand that CIA is bad and NATO/USA has done dumb poo poo, but these do not change the facts. That's a German issue too. "Die Linke" issued a statement on Monday where they cited the Kosovo war as an example of NATO aggression that justifies Russian actions towards Ukraine and the former SPD chancellor is a highly paid Russian gas lobbyist.
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Feb 24, 2022 09:45
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Budzilla posted:The video of "Why is Ukraine the West's Fault? Featuring John Mearsheimer" on youtube was linked in the old EE thread and I will tell you why his view is bad. It is not bad because of his "realism" perspective of what is going on. It is bad because he is deliberately incomplete on his Ukrainian conflict view from a geopolitical perspective. In the video for 30 minutes he goes on how Russia has "core interests" in Ukraine while the US doesn't have "core interests" and keeps droning on about it but he never talks about Ukraine "core interests". Whether he likes it or not more than 40 million people live in Ukraine and they have a military, central government and all the other things which make it a sovereign state and he skirts that. Imagine I gave a lecture about geopolitical tensions in East Asia in the 1930s and I didn't mention the Empire of Japan, that's how dysfunctional his view is. Looking at the updates here they are not gonna have a military for much longer.
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Feb 24, 2022 09:46
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