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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

#231

Post by sofixa »

medo-bear wrote: post #59

so this article is in russian/ukranian (or another language in cyrillic) and i wonder, did all people liking or commenting here really read this? as a european i tend to be very skeptical of the US involvement in eastern europe. they seem to be exploiting the enmity of some eastern european nations toward russia for own economic gain and to stop russia selling its natural resources to EU. all the while being many man…

The US thew a tantrum about Cuba, and still penalises them to this day, so you can easily see how hypocritical they are ( US missiles in Turkey are OK, but Soviet in Cuba weren't).

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#232

Post by ivan_gammel »

me_me_me wrote: post #205
ivan_gammel wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Rus…

No, you misread it. I did not say that Crimea will be returned.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#233

Post by qwytw »

jacquesm wrote: post #216
qwytw wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's irrelevant, their purpose is to act as a deterrent. By invading Russia would also directly attack American, British, German, Canadian etc. soldiers which not something their governments can just ignore. Anyway it's not the 1930's, considering the current political and economical environment there is absolutely no rational reason for Russia to invade the Baltic states (unlike eastern Ukraine or Crimea). What wo…

Last I heard the Americans had left. Is there something I have missed?

True, currently Americans seems to be only stationed in Poland (while Germans are mainly in Lithuania, Canadians in Latvia and the UK in Estonia) but I don't see how that fundamentally changes anything.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#234

Post by bigbizisverywyz »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #105
throwaway0a5e wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>NATO is first and foremost a tool of American power in Europe and against Russia Sure, but that's only because Russian and US foreign policy goals are so opposed. Other than their territorial ambitions in Europe this need not be the case.

Not 'only'. That's key. Different countries have different interests. Powerful enough countries can remain independent and pursue them as they see fit. The US want to keep control of Europe, that's partly what NATO is for. There's no reason for Russia to be OK with that. In fact no European country should be OK with that but for historically reasons I think they reckon that this is better than the fear of letting the…

> In fact no European country should be OK with that Russia's brutal annexations in the east following WWII pretty much assured that all European countries were, in fact OK with it.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#235

Post by MeinBlutIstBlau »

3pt14159 wrote: post #16
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…

The west will not protect Ukraine for two giant reasons. 1. Russia has gas over Germany. 2. Amassing troops on Russia's boarder without an alliance with Ukraine is politically challenging. 3. America is sick of war and doesn't have a good looking balance sheet. 4. China is the new meta. Taiwan is tough enough. 5. Joining Nato is a process starts with have a certain level of democratic freedom and market economy that…

The US will not defend Taiwan. China will shut off exports to the US immediately and then we'll have a worse shortage crisis than we do now.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#236

Post by deepsun »

qwytw wrote: post #221
scottLobster wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is less about NATO deployments and more the will of NATO leadership to go to war with Russia over its more minor members. I hate to say it but the Afghanistan withdrawal really showed what happens when Americans stop giving a shit, and they probably don't give that much of a shit about Latvia. Who's going to step into that gap for NATO? Poland recently ran a military exercise simulating a war with Russia…

What rational reason would Russia have to invade the Baltic States (or even for example Poland)? Even in best case scenario if the west does not directly intervene, they would get an additional few million people almost all of whom absolutely don't want to live in Russia and whom Russia could barely afford to police and a lot of additional economic sanctions. Also we're totally ignoring the internal political fallout…

The reason is more territory. That is Russian never-ending external politics position, that's been followed through several centuries so far.

Russia largely doesn't care about people as much as about territory.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#237

Post by [deleted] »

varjag wrote: post #220
wayoutthere wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

People often have no appreciation of scale. Russia has more armor than NATO has Javelins and loitering munitions.

[deleted]

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#238

Post by fdjfj3iugl1 »

My ex gf is Russian / Ukrainian; While dating I asked her about this. Basically she said: Ukraine is run by mobsters and you can’t build anything without their involvement and they’ll make sure it’s only barely worth your while. The Russians in Ukraine just want to swap Ukrainian mobsters for Russian mobsters who they believe be fairer to them. As for Belarus she tells me: Lukashenko is often asked if he would reunite with Russia; he responds by saying that’ll be great as he will then lead all of Russia. So it’s actually Lukashenko that is putting off reunification.

It’s my opinion that if the West really wanted to end the war in Ukraine they would need to help ending the mobsterism there that’s driving the Russian Ukrainians into Russian hands. Instead it seems that the West are instead supporting these same mobsters as a way of attacking Russia and the poor Ukrainians are caught in the middle of it.

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#239

Post by scottLobster »

qwytw wrote: post #221
scottLobster wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is less about NATO deployments and more the will of NATO leadership to go to war with Russia over its more minor members. I hate to say it but the Afghanistan withdrawal really showed what happens when Americans stop giving a shit, and they probably don't give that much of a shit about Latvia. Who's going to step into that gap for NATO? Poland recently ran a military exercise simulating a war with Russia…

What rational reason would Russia have to invade the Baltic States (or even for example Poland)? Even in best case scenario if the west does not directly intervene, they would get an additional few million people almost all of whom absolutely don't want to live in Russia and whom Russia could barely afford to police and a lot of additional economic sanctions. Also we're totally ignoring the internal political fallout…

Border security (same reason the Soviets held onto their gains), paranoia, and Putin needing an external enemy to galvanize his power. Plus they've taken the Crimea and effectively a large chunk of Ukraine with little effective pushback. They may believe that Europe and US lack the will for harsh punishments, particularly with Germany (among others) reliant on Russian natural gas. There are also a lot of ethnic Russians in the former Warsaw pact nations who might welcome a closer relationship.

I can't speak to the will of the Russian people, but anti-western propaganda has been common there for well over a decade. If it's even been marginally effective they may be more geared up for conflict than people expect.

Would you ask what rational reason China has to invade Taiwan?

Re: Russian court accidentally confirmed Russian military presence in Ukraine

#240

Post by kofejnik »

qwytw wrote: post #221
scottLobster wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is less about NATO deployments and more the will of NATO leadership to go to war with Russia over its more minor members. I hate to say it but the Afghanistan withdrawal really showed what happens when Americans stop giving a shit, and they probably don't give that much of a shit about Latvia. Who's going to step into that gap for NATO? Poland recently ran a military exercise simulating a war with Russia…

What rational reason would Russia have to invade the Baltic States (or even for example Poland)? Even in best case scenario if the west does not directly intervene, they would get an additional few million people almost all of whom absolutely don't want to live in Russia and whom Russia could barely afford to police and a lot of additional economic sanctions. Also we're totally ignoring the internal political fallout…

The rational reason to invade East Ukraine was to up the stakes and make everyone forget about annexation of Crimean peninsula. And it mostly worked, unfortunately
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