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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

#171

Post by MeinBlutIstBlau »

underscore_ku wrote: post #143
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; an…

[dead]

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#172

Post by drran »

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.

Current war of RF with Ukraine is about natural gas. Ukraine tried to drill natural gas near to Slovians`k by contracting Shell, to export natural gas to EU, to block RF from selling to EU. Also, Ukraine won a dispute with Romania about a natural gas field in the Black Sea. These actions threatened Gasprom plans to be $1 trillion company, so Gasprom owners started the war. Everything else is secondary.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#173

Post by bigbizisverywyz »

atlasunshrugged wrote: post #127
rmind wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You suddently jumped to conclusion that EU could not do much without NATO, but that's just your speculation. - EU is basically the third largest economy in the World. Meanwhile, Russia is about similar size economy as Italy. The combined EU military spending and capability/equipment is well above Russia's. So, in terms of economic and military power, the EU certainly has means, but see below. - Would EU have politica…

Just a note, while Baltic banks are well integrated into the EU (especially after the Danske bank scandal and others before it made integration with Russia politically toxic) the energy grid of the region is still very tied into Russia which is of a critical concern right now (see EU energy prices and issues with the harmonization across the union). I will also have a very negative posture on the EU military spending…

>the energy grid of the region is still very tied into Russia which is of a critical concern right now

This however makes the relationship somewhat symbiotic, as Russia also depends on EU money. I remember reading recently (somewhere?) that Russia had transitioned from a failed industrial state to a failed Petrostate sometime in the 90's since that's currently their biggest source of foreign currency.

Another point I'm surprised I don't see anybody making is the impact of drones on armoured assaults. The recent conflict (Tajikistan / Kyrgyzstan ?) showed that they could really devastate attacking armour, and last time Russia 'holidayed' in Ukraine it was their stronger armour that pushed the Ukrainians back. This could really tip the balance back to the defenders. Also, it's hard to deny you've invaded a country if 100 of your tanks are smouldering wrecks on the wrong side of a border.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#174

Post by kingcharles »

underscore_ku wrote: post #151
ridiculous_leke wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

russia's economy is smaller than Italy's, Russia can't afford long wars. in 10 years Poland alone would be able to take on Russia.

People never realize how broke Russia really is because Russia plays such a good marketing game.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#175

Post by drran »

atlasunshrugged wrote: post #147
elliekelly wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

s/EU/Germany/

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#176

Post by sailingparrot »

piokoch wrote: post #92
rpadovani wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 pr…

You forget about this country called France that has a better/bigger army than Germany, has nuclear weapons and likes to think of itself as equal and not subordinate to Germany in the EU.

NATO as a whole might not engage in such a war, but members of EU certainly can, even without NATO.

The combined firepower of France, Germany, Italy and Spain is not something Russia can handle by itself. So the question is would Russia gets backing from China and/or Turkey to start invading portions of the EU?

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#177

Post by refurb »

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…

“Legally binding” makes me chuckle.

“Legally binding” makes sense within a system where a mechanism of enforcement exists. Once you rise above the state, nothing exists, at least on a permanent basis.

Ukraine is basically in a situation of “you don’t own what you cant defend through violence”.

The Ukraine will lose another chunk of territory. Western nations will “decry this violation of sovereignty” and the UN will condemn it, but Russia will own it.

People don’t like it, but in the end the US motto of “might makes right” is correct. If you cant defend it, it’s not yours.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#178

Post by rich_sasha »

rmind wrote: post #114
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.

The information in this Wikipedia page is out of date. There are quite a few new LNG terminals in the EU now which diversified the gas supply. High consumption from Russia doesn't not necessarily mean dependency, e.g. Lithuania has an LNG terminal with a capacity to supply itself and the other Baltics states, but the country buys mostly the Russian gas simply because they offer lower market price. However, Lithuania…

Everything you write is true. I suspect if the tap were to be closed overnight, or even with two weeks' notice, there would be huge disruption.

The fact that one country can shift a marginal gas use from one seller to another doesn't mean, for example, that you could find enough gas in the free market to suddenly prop up 40% of European winter needs.

I think there's a lot that could be done here, but it would require coordination and a united front. Oddly, I feel both these things are in place.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#179

Post by jacquesm »

sam_lowry_ wrote: post #141
jacquesm wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Popular tourist destinations for Europeans are France, Spain, Italy, Turkey, Germany, the UK, Austria, Greece, Russia, Portugal, Poland etc.

Even Romania sees more tourism than all of the Baltics combined, and Romania is pretty far down the list of tourist destinations. I don't know how you define 'popular' but in my circle I'm the only person that has visited the Baltics for something other than work.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#180

Post by underscore_ku »

piokoch wrote: post #92
rpadovani wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 pr…

please stop reading russia today and sputnik. you sound just like russian propaganda
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