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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

#201

Post by Bayart »

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.

Russia's development and production costs for military hardware is also much smaller than any Western nation's. They get much more for their money in that respect.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#202

Post by wayoutthere »

jacquesm wrote: post #189
bingohbangoh wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NATO troops being actively stationed in the Baltics is a little different. Ukraine doesn’t have anything that I’m aware of.

20K troops or thereabouts. No tanks, no planes, just some artillery.

Armored ground vehicles in a frontline role are largely worthless against a modern military; it’s too easy to take them out with drone-fired missiles or kamikaze drones.

NATO doesn’t need to position planes in the Baltics when they’re within range of its air bases in Germany (airbases should be well behind the front lines anyway).

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#203

Post by bigbizisverywyz »

georgecmu wrote: post #159
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…

For a much more evenhanded -- and hence rare -- take, you may wish to read this very recent commentary from Jack Matlock, the last US Ambassador to the USSR[1]. He has the advantage of being an observer who is (a) very informed and (b) disinterested. The following paragraphs are worth reading, even if you fundamentally disagree with this viewpoint[2]. Russia is extremely sensitive about foreign military activity adja…

>However, the Crimea is quite different in one key respect: most of its people, being Russian, prefer to be in Russia. In fact, one can

>argue that it is in the political interest of Ukrainian nationalists to have Crimea in Russia. Without the votes from Crimea, Viktor

>Yanukovich would never have been elected president.

This is actually a very interesting point, and would explain Ukraine's recent shift to more nationalist politics, and pivot away from Russia - which (unintended consequences for Russia) sparked all these problems in the east.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#204

Post by mercy_dude »

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…

Correct me if I am wrong but the more I digged into this story more I find it is much more nuanced than this.

So briefly here is what I think had happened:

- Russia had a huge strategic deal to sell Germany petroleum and natural gas. This was years of diplomatic work and finally got to the point where this looked like a reality.

- The settlement of the above deal would be in EUR bypassing the typical petrodollar settlement.

- Ukraine was proposed to be added to NATO by US and other allies.

- Russia started moving troops to Ukraine.

- the above mentioned deal with Germany is now under question.

One has to wonder if the last three points are correlated and second and the third points are correlated i.e. to keep the petrodollar dominance US is crafting this conflict by adding Ukraine to NATO.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#205

Post by me_me_me »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #65
baud147258 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For joining NATO, isn't there also a requirement on territorial integrity which makes Ukraine joining impossible as long as the Donbass situation persists?

Donbass is a diversion of attention from Crimea. It will eventually settle and return back to Ukraine, as more and more countries recognize Crimea as part of Russia. It is hard to imagine Ukraine giving up on Crimea (though it would make a lot of sense by now), so it will never join NATO and it is very unlikely that they will join EU despite promises of local politicians.

> It will eventually settle and return back to Ukraine

> as more and more countries recognize Crimea as part of Russia.

What? Crimea will return to Ukraine as more countries recognise Crimea as Russian territory?

> It will eventually settle and return back to Ukraine

Crimea will never return to Ukraine, Russia historically needs port that doesn't freeze over winter. Now that Ukraine is looking towards EU/Nato and Russia cannot control it as a satellite corrupt state, Russian military will not allow losing control of their most important port.

This whole war in Ukraine is to open up possibility for a break-out state favourable and funded by Russia or even assimilation into Russia, as its a corridor to Crimea.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#206

Post by KaiserPro »

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.

> It’s not a matter of power but a matter of morals I think.

Its a matter of will.

What is in it for the USA to start/finish a hot war with russia?

Russia has has different rules of engagement which means that they are prepared to be a bit more ruthless when it comes to doing a war.

This means that for the US to win, it will need to commit a fucktonne of resources, of which a politically damaging number will be destroyed.

The US isn't going to commit that much because there is no real strategic win for this.

Russia is basically being textbook russia. Its been doing this shit in this region off and on for the last 150+ years. Its far easier to let ukraine blunt russia's fighting force, than it is to loose american troops.

Its not a moral judgement, its raw hard domestic politics.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#207

Post by undergrowth54 »

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?

They could publicly shame the US, UK, and France about abandoning an ally without putting up a fight. This humiliation would threaten

1. Those nations' ability to sell military hardware to the leaders of resource-rich nations.

2. Those nations' politicians ability to avoid a governing coalition between the radical far right and newly-angry moderate conservatives.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#208

Post by torstenvl »

trasz wrote: post #123
Jcowell wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It’s not about morals - nobody in US seems to care about the million people they killed in Middle East - it’s about dead American soldiers looking bad in the TV.

False statements don't help public discussion.

It is not true that the U.S. killed a million people in the Middle East. And this is not some sophistic semantic argument either, as it remains not true when you include Afghanistan. The number of civilian casualties is not even close.

It is also not true that the U.S. doesn't care about civilian casualties. The U.S., U.K., and Australia are the only countries I know that put lawyers in air strike operations cells to ensure the law of armed conflict is followed. The French red card holders receive training but don't tend to be lawyers, believe similar is true for Germans and Italians. You'd be hard pressed to find anyone who takes this obligation more seriously than the U.S. and closest allies.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#209

Post by oneplane »

refurb wrote: post #177
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…

“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…

That US war-motto doesn't make a whole lot of sense in the rest of the developed world. They haven't actually had any battles at home, except for the ones where they attack themselves. It's a relatively young country anyway, so it's hard to pin any value on any war-motto that's not about a far-from-home war (which is what they do have experience with).

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#210

Post by fer »

selivanovp wrote: post #18

In real news, not propaganda, Russian court didn't confirmed anything. The guy accused of bribery just declared that he was sending food to Russian army units in DPR/LPR. The same way he could've declared that he was feeding martians.

In Occam's razor news, there are not many reasons to detour 40 tons worth of military rations near a warzone where you're totally not involved.
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