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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

#141

Post by sam_lowry_ »

jacquesm wrote: post #109
hdjjhhvvhga wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We'll see about that. I understand your pessimism but we are talking about the most powerful military organization on the planet. If for some strange reason they decide they give up protecting their borders, they might as well not exist. If Russia decides to invade Latvia and NATO does nothing, the whole pact might as well dissolve itself as it serves no function.

The problem is that the rest of Europe doesn't really 'know' Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, they are just names to them. Possibly some people would be able to point them out on a map but the vast bulk of the people has absolutely no link with those countries on account of them being geographically isolated. Their only direct connection is a less than 50 km wide strip of border between Poland and Lithuania with exactl…

Mind that Baltic countries have been popular tourist destinations for Europeans.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#142

Post by atlasunshrugged »

jacquesm wrote: post #62
tomp wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm certain that Israel's nukes and their strategic air strikes against Iran's nuclear/military facilities (preventing Iran from having nukes) contributes much more to their protection than a standing army. This situation is obviously amplified 10x in Lithuania (population 30% of Israel) vs Russia (population 170% Iran).

And don't forget that in the Baltics there is a fairly large contingent of Ethnic Russians who are the perfect pretext for a liberation exercise. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russians_in_the_Baltic_states

I disagree in Estonia and Lithuania. I think that 1) many ethnic Russians have seen the quality of life get much better living in these countries and while they may still hold many similar cultural values, would not want to live in Russia and 2) that the governments of the countries are well aware of the risk and have plans to counter it. Not so sure about Latvia.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#143

Post by underscore_ku »

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…

there are already NATO battalions in Latvia and Lithuania. Albania, the Czech Republic, Iceland, Italy, Montenegro, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain contribute to the Canadian-led battlegroup in Latvia; Belgium, the Czech Republic, Iceland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Norway provide contributions to the German-led battlegroup in Lithuania; France and Iceland contribute to the UK-led battlegroup in Estonia; and Croatia, Romania and the United Kingdom are part of the US-led battlegroup in Poland. etc. it's so funny how many people comment without knowing anything about NATO or EU

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#144

Post by sudosysgen »

Jcowell wrote: post #102
roody15 wrote: post #96

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 do…

It’s not a matter of power but a matter of morals I think. The U.S has every ability annihilate any enemy but the collateral damage to do so restricts it heavily. If the goal of the US was straight up imperialism/colonialism it would be a very different story.

Lol. The US is far from that powerful. You don't win wars by annihilation, you win wars by achieving political goals. The US wasn't able to reach these goals in no small part because of too much collateral damage.

If you want to know what a more sucessful campaign in Afghanistan looked like, the USSR invaded Afghanistan and their allied regime lasted over a year until Yeltsin caused the to fall and gave Afghanistan to the Taliban by imposing sanctions.

You'll note that it's not increased brutality that was successful. It was having actually effective allies on the ground that made and broke the Soviet campaign.

What's more, the campaign of shock in the initial stages of invasion was brutal, and did a lot of collateral damage, and didn't work and actually was counterproductive.

It was only when the Soviets and their allies managed to actually get a competent and motivated Afghan military towards the later stages of the war that the war started turning in their favour.

The US was never able to achieve their political goals and the US-backed government was never competent and motivated even after twenty years. It was a failure of the US military to achieve its goals. No amount of additional collateral damage would have done anything, it was simply a failure. In fact, less morals would have made things worse.

Also, see Iraq which was even more brutal and still completely unsuccessful with Iraq veering under Iranian control.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#145

Post by atlasunshrugged »

abcd_f wrote: post #117
hdjjhhvvhga wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Don’t misquote. Current conflict is rooted exactly in Ukraine trying to aligning itself with the West. It would’ve been the EU first, Nato second for them. That would’ve created a massive headache for Russia, including the loss of its only warm port, hence the annexation and the invasion. And now Ukraine is in limbo, because the EU won’t touch it with a wooden pole while it is in an active conflict.

Yes, even if they didn't make it into the EU, Putin's loss of political cronies at the highest level of government is dangerous for him, he has talked about the end of the Soviet Union being a tragedy so I wouldn't be so sure he doesn't want to re-unite the countries, and totally agree on the ports (plus it was insanely popular domestically, at least at first to annex Crimea)

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#147

Post by atlasunshrugged »

elliekelly wrote: post #107
newjersey wrote: post #69

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. I don't actually know anything about Russia or Europe or politics in general first hand. However, from listening to a few episodes of the Economist podcast, my impression has been that Putin is stuck. He can't quit because even though he might be above being punished for his crimes…

We’ve been slowly boiling Russia with sanctions for the last decade to the point that they’ve developed & implemented plenty of work-arounds.

It's especially hard when the EU helps undermine them constantly because they're addicted to Russian gas

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#148

Post by trasz »

baud147258 wrote: post #23
w_t_payne wrote: post #7

Putin justifies his clumsy adventurism by attempting to paint his enemies as fascists. The rise of the extreme right in the west provides significant political cover for Putin, and should probably be assumed to be a tool of his hybrid warfare strategy.

I don't think the rise of far-right parties and ideologies in the West is something that can be blamed on Putin. He is exploiting it and sometime helping existing groups and factions, but not much more. And for Ukraine, the anti-Russian faction does have some facist/neo-nazis groups in it.

We know for a fact that Russia is donating money to European far-right groups.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#149

Post by drran »

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.

RF has border with USA.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#150

Post by sudosysgen »

nradov wrote: post #110
roody15 wrote: post #96

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 do…

Despite the debacle in Afghanistan, the US military remains extremely powerful with an unmatched capacity to project that power around the world. Russian leaders are under no illusions about that. However, military power is meaningless if you're not willing to use it. President Biden has already clearly stated that the US will not intervene militarily to defend Ukraine, and will only apply economic sanctions.

The debacle in Afghanistan showed that the US military is incompetent when it comes to actually achieving their goals.

Let's say the US does intervene in Ukraine. The US still won't be able to take Crimea for obvious reasons. Ukraine itself will be even more of a shithole. In the end, when the US leaves Ukraine, Will things be better or worse? Who knows, and that's why an intervention there is not on the table. If it was easy and straightforward and would deal a decisive blow to Russia, it would already be done.

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