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Russian forces invade Ukraine after Putin orders attack

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Re: Russian forces invade Ukraine after Putin orders attack

#741

Post by jacquesm »

mleg wrote: post #729

Another Russian here. I don't agree and don't support this action. We anticipate long years if not decades of isolation, even more stagnating economy, even more authoritarian government. By all means it's a terrible thing. For both Russians and Ucrainians alike. But... The drama around it as portrayed in Western media is ridiculous. There won't be major loss of life nor any "war" in conventional sense. It would be no…

> There won't be major loss of life nor any "war" in conventional sense.

That's a bit premature.

As for the rest: Russians could rise en-masse to put a stop to this. Call a general strike all over Russia tomorrow and you might be able to avoid those decades of isolation and stagnating economy.

Re: Russian forces invade Ukraine after Putin orders attack

#742

Post by BitwiseFool »

light_hue_1 wrote: post #697
VoodooJuJu wrote: post #668

What is the endgame here? Russia is outclassed by NATO both economically and militarily. If NATO intervenes economically, Russia will lose much. If NATO intervenes militarily, Russia will lose much (but at great cost to NATO). The risk of NATO intervention is high, right? Russia understood this before invading, right? So it seems Russia is accepting a high risk of loss. But it doesn't make sense that a nation as soph…

There's no country like Russia that is accepting such high risk. Russia is a dictatorship. It's Putin taking risks to settle old scores that he feels weren't addressed when the Soviet union collapsed as a way to distract from Russia's severe internal problems. Putin sees the west as weak. Germany has a new leader. France is about to have elections. The UK is still dealing with Brexit. The EU is fractured with Poland…

> "The US is so divided that a previous president is encouraging Putin to invade"

I've started hearing this a lot this morning and I don't see where Trump actually said this. From what I can tell he's blaming the current administration for allowing this to happen and saying that Putin is brilliant for taking advantage of Biden and outsmarting him. Seems like he's primarily calling Biden inept rather than encouraging Putin to go further.

Re: Russian forces invade Ukraine after Putin orders attack

#743

Post by rvba »

mysecretaccount wrote: post #38
warner_of_doom wrote: post #29

I am for keeping Ukraine as a neutral buffer separating Russia and the US. NATO proposed Ukrainian and Georgian membership of NATO in 2005-2008, in the clear knowledge that this would destabilize the situation. France, Germany, and others were against this. The proposal began the issue. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJBQikfYyKs We then openly backed the 2014 putsch in Kiev, an open act of aggression just as irrespo…

Will the people downvoting this comment mind telling me what is wrong with it? I'm not a Russian apologist, just a fan of history, and am trying to understand why so many people reject this narrative. edit: Now I am downvoted too just for asking..? This just makes me think that there is not a solid answer?

Ukrainian people can decide themselves what they can do.

The comment above is pushing Russian propaganda.

Re: Russian forces invade Ukraine after Putin orders attack

#744

Post by Cthulhu_ »

BurningFrog wrote: post #670
VoodooJuJu wrote: post #668

What is the endgame here? Russia is outclassed by NATO both economically and militarily. If NATO intervenes economically, Russia will lose much. If NATO intervenes militarily, Russia will lose much (but at great cost to NATO). The risk of NATO intervention is high, right? Russia understood this before invading, right? So it seems Russia is accepting a high risk of loss. But it doesn't make sense that a nation as soph…

Russia has thousands of nuclear missiles. This makes them immune to NATO invasion.

It doesn't, it just gives them a "if we don't win, nobody does" option.

Re: Russian forces invade Ukraine after Putin orders attack

#745

Post by ironcurtain »

hajile wrote: post #698
phlipski wrote: post #681

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the only thing that makes sense is Putin's unchecked power (inside Russia) has essentially made him not give a damn anymore. He's rich and powerful and reaching end of his life. He might be physically ill - we don't know. And this is his chance to try to rebuild the USSR consequences be damned.

I think this is the case. We're talking about a guy who thought that Lenin and Stalin were too soft. His speech a couple days ago was unhinged and offering justification to invade almost all of Eastern Europe. https://www.c-span.org/video/?518097-2/russian-president-put...

Did you actually listen to the speech? There was none of it. He stated that Soviet National republics were created by taking historical Russian territory and giving them to newly formed states. All true.

Re: Russian forces invade Ukraine after Putin orders attack

#746

Post by moss2 »

VoodooJuJu wrote: post #668

What is the endgame here? Russia is outclassed by NATO both economically and militarily. If NATO intervenes economically, Russia will lose much. If NATO intervenes militarily, Russia will lose much (but at great cost to NATO). The risk of NATO intervention is high, right? Russia understood this before invading, right? So it seems Russia is accepting a high risk of loss. But it doesn't make sense that a nation as soph…

Who knows. Maybe Putin is losing support in Russia and sees all-out war with Europe as a way to stay in power.

Re: Russian forces invade Ukraine after Putin orders attack

#747

Post by ramesh31 »

hajile wrote: post #660
explaingarlic wrote: post #629

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The count of soldiers doesn't matter; you can only fit so many on a battle line anyway and a war in which you run through a full battle line of infantry is so costly that even that insane regime wouldn't go for it. The red army required millions of soldiers because it ran through them so quickly due to their battle doctrine. This conflict will be nothing like World War 2. The size of the economy doesn't so much matte…

That economy means we can pump out more ranged weapons than the Russians can. We could literally keep shooting missiles until they ran out of things to block them with and keep shooting until there's nothing left.

A lot of times I think about how brutal modern warfare would be today if it weren't for nuclear weapons. Imagine a WW2 style scenario but with smart weapons, cluster bombs, cruise missiles, modern main battle tanks, drones, and computerized artillery/MLRS. All being employed in industrial scale quantities by major nation states without the risk of nuclear war. It would be unimaginable carnage.

Re: Russian forces invade Ukraine after Putin orders attack

#748

Post by jacquesm »

hotpotamus wrote: post #634
programmarchy wrote: post #626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the era of industrialization economic size was a proxy for the capability of a state to mobilize its industrial capacity for war. Does that still hold true?

To me, the real question is what's the ROI on intervening to defend Ukraine?

That's the wrong question. It assumes there is an upside. But the real question is: what is the downside of not defending Ukraine? and what is the downside of defending Ukraine? Because war doesn't really have an upside, it only has downsides.

Re: Russian forces invade Ukraine after Putin orders attack

#749

Post by ironcurtain »

ericmay wrote: post #706
VoodooJuJu wrote: post #668

What is the endgame here? Russia is outclassed by NATO both economically and militarily. If NATO intervenes economically, Russia will lose much. If NATO intervenes militarily, Russia will lose much (but at great cost to NATO). The risk of NATO intervention is high, right? Russia understood this before invading, right? So it seems Russia is accepting a high risk of loss. But it doesn't make sense that a nation as soph…

Long story short, Putin's plan is, depending on how Ukraine goes, to further attack Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, maybe Finland (they'll join NATO by the end of the year if not sooner as will Sweden), maybe Poland , and push the United States and UK out of Europe. If Ukraine goes very well, this will be sooner. If Ukraine goes poorly but he still wins and installs a puppet government, it'll be on a longer time…

That’s just paranoia.

Re: Russian forces invade Ukraine after Putin orders attack

#750

Post by nradov »

VoodooJuJu wrote: post #721
smoe wrote: post #691

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the risk of direct NATO military intervention is very low, due to Ukraine not being a member state. As the Nato secretary said, they will support Ukraine, but made it clear the security guarantees are only for allies. "I think also that we need to realize that Ukraine is a highly valued partner. We support them with military support, with political support, with the cyber defences, with equipment. Different A…

>I think the risk of direct NATO military intervention is very low I agree the military intervention risk seems low, but what about economic intervention? Isn't this going to have some serious economic repercussions for Russia?

Perhaps, but there are already significant economic sanctions in place since the previous invasion of Ukraine in 2014. Russia has survived those reasonably well. More sanctions will probably come but they can only be incremental. Several key NATO members are highly dependent on Russian energy supplies and can't afford to shut those off indefinitely.
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