291–300 of 1001 posts
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It is a bit easier fighting caveman jihadist and third class dictators with outdated military, than a nuclear superpower.
> superpower. Yup. Because when I think of superpower I think of an economy that is barely passing Italy's.
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I don't think Putin is worried about loss of life of Ukrainian citizens. He is worried about losing soldiers, or more importantly dead soldiers being repatriated on the news. They will cover up civilian casualties or blame them on Ukrainian troops. The only support for this will come from Russia domestically and it is that which he seeks to maintain with this war. Which I'm guessing he hoped would be quick and decisi…
"I don't think Putin is worried about loss of life of Ukrainian citizens." Then he would just shell and flatten all the ukrainian cities. Russia has air superiority as far as I know.
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> The Russian forces seem to be trying to encircle or assault Kyiv. Yes, but although Putin is a bloody bastard, he's not stupid. His plan isn't to take entire control of Ukraine militarily but to swap the legit government with a puppet one he would control at will. Once he succeed, which is a matter of a few days, he'll gradually withdraw most of the forces, things will slowly return to normal and in a few years Ukr…
Holy crap, Europe needs to get off natural gas yesterday.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oAOSTiumsg How can you ask for source but then confidently claim otherwise. Ugh. edit : https://old.reddit.com/r/therewasanattempt/comments/t0di4z/t... is a crappy Reddit link, but also goes on to include the nuclear mention as well. How can you view this as anything but a nuclear warning?
Watch those again. He never pronounced the word nuclear . It was just a (more or less empty) threat in the poker game he is playing to keep cowardly politicians from helping an independent nation being invaded. Looks like it worked. I wonder what else are people willing to give up at the mere hint of a nuclear threat: their houses? Their freedom? Their friends? Their spouses? Their children?
Also, he did say it, according to that _transcription_. I don't speak Russian, so i wouldn't know beyond that. Regardless don't play dumb, you and everyone else knew what he meant. Whether or not he'll follow through is the question - but what he meant was obvious. He knew what he was implying.
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It is a bit easier fighting caveman jihadist and third class dictators with outdated military, than a nuclear superpower.
> superpower. Yup. Because when I think of superpower I think of an economy that is barely passing Italy's.
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Ukraine is not a member of NATO, so options are somewhat limited. Russia intends to use Chernobyl as a deterrent to NATO, according to the report (how, I do not know). It is also not straightforward to put a NATO ally right on Russia's vulnerable flank (it's endless plains and flat ground from Ukraine to Moscow, which has always been a source of strategic vulnerability for Moscow), so admitting Ukraine to NATO was ne…
Ukraine signed a Budapest memorandum [1] where US, France, UK and Russia guaranteed its territory integrity in exhange for the 3rd in the world arsenal of nuclear weapons. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Secur...
The leaders just signed a piece of paper which was never ratified by legislators and doesn't even guarantee what you claim:
> The United States of America, the Russian Federation, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, reaffirm their commitment to seek immediate United Nations Security Council action to provide assistance to Ukraine, as a non-nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, if Ukraine should become a victim of an act of aggression or an object of a threat of aggression in which nuclear weapons are used.
It was just a promise to have a meeting at the UNSC if something happens.
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If I understand correctly, your central thesis is about deterring EU from attacking. It misses the point that Russia already has a huge stockpile of nuclear weapons to deter EU from attacking them. So, why would they rely on an 'offchance' 2nd-hand threat of fallout when they can just threaten to use their guaranteed-to-deter stockpile of weapons?
I think I'm using "Allied Forces" and "Europeans" too loosely. I was lumping Ukrainian forces into that label. They're already under attack so any conventional retaliation on invading forces is already a given. I'm basically saying that NATO/EU would put pressure on Ukraine NOT to attack the staging area because any fallout could waft over into Western Europe. This is in addition to the already present downside of Uk…