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Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

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Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#91

Post by drran »

rmind wrote: post #53
lnsru wrote: post #27

There is only way for country’s protection and it’s Israel’s way where whole country is also an army. Especially for countries near unfriendly countries like Russia in this submission. Because all the treaties and documents signed by politicians are absolutely worthless. Ukraine got rid of all the Soviet nuclear weapons and got lots of promises: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Secur... Now they…

Just a few points: - The Budapest Memorandum was, unfortunately, not legally binding. Not justifying the lack of support from the West, but just pointing out an important aspect. - North Atlantic Treaty is legally binding. Also, the Baltic States already host a small multi-national contingent of NATO troops: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_Enhanced_Forward_Presence - It is also worth noting that the EU has mutual…

> The Budapest Memorandum was, unfortunately, not legally binding. Not justifying the lack of support from the West, but just pointing out an important aspect.

Yep, nobody will be sued when Ukraine will nuke RF in violation of Budapest memorandum. So what?

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#92

Post by piokoch »

rpadovani wrote: post #64
lnsru wrote: post #27

There is only way for country’s protection and it’s Israel’s way where whole country is also an army. Especially for countries near unfriendly countries like Russia in this submission. Because all the treaties and documents signed by politicians are absolutely worthless. Ukraine got rid of all the Soviet nuclear weapons and got lots of promises: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Secur... Now they…

> Will NATO come for let’s say Latvia or Lithuania? I don't know about NATO, but I strongly hope that EU defends its territory integrity. And I am not sure Russia wants to find out either…

How EU will do this? NATO is very clear about not being able to defend Baltic countries, they just don't have sufficient militarily presence. Polish army is currently even to weak to protect Poland, maybe this will change in next 10 years, as there are significant investments into army and military industry planned, but not now.

EU would have to deploy immediately at least two heavily armed divisions to be able to protect Polish-Belarusian border (which is in reality Polish-Russian border and would be first attack direction to cut supply chains from Polans) and attack Kaliningrad, what is the key in Baltic countries defense.

Nothing happens in EU without Germany agreement, so the question is: will German army going to engage? Germany is busy cutting trade deal with China and starting Nord Stream 2 which would provide Russian gas for Germany, so the answer is clear.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#93

Post by hdjjhhvvhga »

rpadovani wrote: post #64
lnsru wrote: post #27

There is only way for country’s protection and it’s Israel’s way where whole country is also an army. Especially for countries near unfriendly countries like Russia in this submission. Because all the treaties and documents signed by politicians are absolutely worthless. Ukraine got rid of all the Soviet nuclear weapons and got lots of promises: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Secur... Now they…

> Will NATO come for let’s say Latvia or Lithuania? I don't know about NATO, but I strongly hope that EU defends its territory integrity. And I am not sure Russia wants to find out either…

Paradoxically, the USA seems more active in the current conflict over Ukraine than the rest of the EU. And it was Germany who blocked the delivery of NATO weapons to Ukraine.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#94

Post by MagnumOpus »

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #17
rich_sasha wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect Ukraine was told quite clearly what they can expect, and as you say, it comes short of NATO boots on the ground, or wings in the sky. I'd say no one ever really wants to defend an ally, it's more of a pros-and-cons balance. For smaller countries, solidarity within NATO is building goodwill capital for when they need help (e.g. with allies following US into Afghanistan). For large countries, this is part of…

> The latter is very difficult for Europe in winter The latter is very difficult for Germany in winter. Let's call a spade a spade and stop bundling the EU27 with Germany's energy policy and geo-political failures.

> Let's call a spade a spade and stop bundling the EU27 with Germany's energy policy and geo-political failures

German gas consumption per capita is not much different than most of the EU27 except France (nuclear) and Spain/southern Italy (it doesn't get cold enough to need much heating). All the EU east of Germany imports more of their gas from Russia as a percentage; and the ones to the west of it only don't because the pipes from Norway or Morocco are shorter.

So no, not just a German problem, your electricity cost have gone up too I bet.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#95

Post by throw8932894 »

Perhaps you should read a bit more Russian sources. There is a Minsk peace agreement, Ukraine was supposed to stop fighting, organise elections, get new government and recognise autonomous regions. Instead it continued fighting. Russia has obligation to those two autonomous regions.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#96

Post by roody15 »

Interesting as I think we are witnessing a global shift in power to the East. China’s rise and the US’s fall from hegemony is starting to be felt in geopolitics.

Russia (IMO)may simply be pressing ahead while it sees the US’s power currently diminished.

The US withdraw of Afghanistan has not helped matters. It demonstrated that although the US military’s budget is 10 times more than its closest rival, this expense does not equal 10 times a more powerful army. Instead we have shown our current military structure is overly bureaucratic and inefficient. Until the US can restructure and gets it house in a bit better order I think we may see Russia continue to press forward in the short term.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#97

Post by nradov »

aa-jv wrote: post #22
rich_sasha wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's plenty of countries heavily dependent on Russian gas, Germany being one. I get it, from Spain it looks very different, but this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia_in_the_European_energy_... shows how many countries depend on Russian gas. This should have been scary to Europe for at least a decade now, but sadly wasn't.

Europeans don't hate Russians as much as Americans do - probably because they've actually got Russians visiting and know that Russia doesn't really represent the threat that the American military-industrial complex needs you to believe is real in order to justify their trillion dollar misadventures and further subjugation of NATO member states into puppetry. In fact, a lot of Europeans would like to see peace made wi…

Americans don't hate Russians any longer. They no longer represent a threat to us and most people have no interest in minor eastern European conflicts.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#98

Post by ridiculous_leke »

MagnumOpus wrote: post #73
rmind wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a few points: - The Budapest Memorandum was, unfortunately, not legally binding. Not justifying the lack of support from the West, but just pointing out an important aspect. - North Atlantic Treaty is legally binding. Also, the Baltic States already host a small multi-national contingent of NATO troops: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_Enhanced_Forward_Presence - It is also worth noting that the EU has mutual…

Anything in international treaties is only as legally binding as the enforcement measures behind them. As a small country, no international treaties are ever legally binding. After all, what could the government-in-exile of Latvia do after a Russian invasion if the US president or UK PM decided after a focus group session that going to war with Russia over the Baltics is not a vote winner?

It's not just about votes. Modern wars can be endless as we saw in Iraq and Afghanistan. And Russia is not foolish enough to do a full scale invasion. They will just send in proxies. No nation wants to commit resources to such wars.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#99

Post by hdjjhhvvhga »

abcd_f wrote: post #70
danlugo92 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only good outcome for the whole world is Putin and allies being ousted out of power and replaced by actual non-warmonger democrats. Imagine a future with Russia in the EU, best timeline. Nobody wants nuclear war, maybe some kind of super-sanctions would be the only recourse for the west, cut them off everything, and I mean everything.

Russia doesn’t give a fuck about Ukraine for as long as it’s not in Nato. Just like the US didn’t like Russian military presence on Cuba, they don’t want the US presence in Ukraine. It’s all fundamentally dead simple. Russia views Ukraine as a buffer country between itself and the West and will do anything to keep it that way.

> Russia doesn’t give a fuck about Ukraine

Their actions from 2014 until now show otherwise. Ukraine is not a part of NATO but Putin decided to grab Crimea, Donbas, and keep the military activity for over 5 years in order to destabilize the country.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#100

Post by throwaway0a5e »

markx2 wrote: post #34
jmacd wrote: post #9

I think we in the west need something like a 'doctrine of the foregone conclusion'. Often things are very obvious, even notorious, but because we do not want to face the eventuality, we do things like negotiate or perseverate our denials all while the situation escalates. If NATO and the west are ready and willing to defend Ukraine (I suspect we are not), in which case a significant increase in our own presence would…

> Often things are very obvious, even notorious, but because we do not want to face the eventuality, we do things like negotiate or perseverate our denials all while the situation escalates. There was an opinion piece on 9 Dec in The Daily Telegraph which points out that the West have 3 potential flashpoints: - Russia and Ukraine - China and Taiwan - Iran and their nuclear enrichment The West can only hope that the t…

I don't see Iran being a flashpoint. Israel is clearly capable of defending itself and we want nothing to do with that godforsaken sandbox. I do see Iran capitalizing on other distractions because they know they get cut no slack on slow news days. Frankly it would probably be for the best if they were nuclear armed because it would keep them and Israel from fighting as much.
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