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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

#871

Post by palerdot »

baby wrote: post #826
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…

Putin, as a dictator, doesn’t necessarily respond to the same voices and lobbies that an American administration would. Sure he’d like Russia to be economically stronger, but his own situation will always be fine so it’s hard to care about a few sanctions. Territory and USSR’s old glory though, that talks to a dictator. You also have to think that this plan was started in 2014 with the annexation of Crimea. There was…

> What is sad really, is that China doesn’t give a fuck

It is better this way, instead of China openly supporting Putin and following suit with its own territorial expansions.

Re: Russian forces invade Ukraine after Putin orders attack

#872

Post by Mikeb85 »

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?

> Isn't this going to have some serious economic repercussions for Russia?

Russia's been sanctioned for nearly a decade. They're probably the most resource-rich nation on earth and have a nearly fully self-sufficient economy. What little they need they can get from China.

Also, when people look at Russia's GDP, they need to look at REAL numbers (ie. Adjusted for PPP). Russia's real GDP is ~3x higher than their nominal GDP (because sanctions drive down currency trade and make the nominal number basically useless).

Re: Russian forces invade Ukraine after Putin orders attack

#873

Post by usr1106 »

moss2 wrote: post #746
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.

Exactly. Things have not gone very well in Russia in recent years. Average people getting poorer. Many casualties in Covid after population has been going down already for longer time. Russia's economy being pretty small internationally if you take the size of the country into account.

Putin just wants to move domestic attention away from all the misery that people will hold him reponsible for. Now war will dominate the agenda. And if someone complains about life getting worse, it's the war, not the incapable president.

Re: Russian forces invade Ukraine after Putin orders attack

#874

Post by dangerface »

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…

The risk of NATO intervention is extremely low considering Ukraine is not in NATO. The whole NATO narrative was just Russian propaganda to try and justify Putins land grab. Russia wants Ukraine back and are willing to take it by force thats all that is happening here, there is no big complicated global politics here just more cold war fallout.

Re: Russian forces invade Ukraine after Putin orders attack

#875

Post by awb »

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…

This book lays out one endgame: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics

The “Finlandization of Europe”.

The idea is to use bribery and propaganda to destabilize Eastern Europe countries until puppet governments rise to power or can be installed, while holding Central Europe at bay through leverage on natural resources. Make deals with Germany and ignore the US and UK.

Basically, take over Europe and break up NATO. Military action is the backup plan when the above coercion fails.

Re: Russian forces invade Ukraine after Putin orders attack

#876

Post by holoduke »

killerstorm wrote: post #858
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…

It's really not about Russia, it's about Putin desire to be a famous dictator like Stalin and Hitler. He already got high-score as a billionaire dictator of Russia with gigantic palaces and whatnot. He already did some 'small' wars and expanded Russia's territory. Now he wants to play big and defeat a major country and be considered a major player like USSR was. There's no profit in it.

Your opinion is very biased and without a strong foundation. Here on hackernews we expect to have in depth detailed discussions where we try to unravel certain actions. In this why Russia invaded Ukraine.

Re: Russian forces invade Ukraine after Putin orders attack

#877

Post by dragonwriter »

harryf wrote: post #708
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…

> But it doesn't make sense that a nation as sophisticated as Russia would accept such a high risk of loss. Which means that they might actually believe the risk of NATO intervention is low. Or they see it like Poker as an "all in" move. Either lose now on their own terms in Ukraine or eventually they lose anyway as Ukraine joins NATO and Russia's nuclear advantages are "neutralized". Meanwhile there's the chance NAT…

> Or they see it like Poker as an "all in" move.

The “all in” move was when they suggested they NATO not meeting their demands to permanently commit to excluding Ukraine and withdraw allied forces from Eastern European members of NATO was an aggressive act pushing them to war in Ukraine. When NATO didn't fold, they either had to invade or show the Putin regime as a paper tiger, which is a mortal blow for an authoritarian regime.

They spent many years on efforts to weaken governments of the West and relations between them for the purpose of doing something like that and having Western unity collapse. Maybe they misjudged and thought that would pay off.

Re: Russian forces invade Ukraine after Putin orders attack

#878

Post by geoka9 »

flavius29663 wrote: post #820
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…

can you tell me what pro-Putin Russians think about this? The ones that are not brainwashed? Like, how does Russia gain anything from this action? It only stands to lose economic ties in an ever increasing interconnected world. When Oil and Gas won't be king in 20 years, Russia is doomed without more cooperation with advanced countries. What are people thinking? What is the reason behind all this?

Imagine North Korea, but with a shitload of nukes.

Re: Russian forces invade Ukraine after Putin orders attack

#879

Post by tjpnz »

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…

Aside from providing arms I doubt we're going to see much else from NATO. That of course assumes Russia won't do anything truly diabolical.

Putin's playing a long game here and on an economic front he's likely betting most of the sanctions won't stick. With 2024 looming large I wouldn't be surprised to a gradual reset in US-Russia relations depending on the election result.

Re: Russian forces invade Ukraine after Putin orders attack

#880

Post by dangerface »

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?

Russia does 5 times more trade with China than the US. Most of the west is reliant on Russian oil or Russian allies oil making it difficult to put down hard sanctions as Russia holds more power that the west would like to admit.

Military intervention is the best solution Russia has a large army but its old and would be unable to deal with western military, but there is no real path for that to happen.

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