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United States tells citizens: Leave Russia immediately

reuters.com

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Re: United States tells citizens: Leave Russia immediately

#81

Post by TrapLord_Rhodo »

KptMarchewa wrote: post #32
kypro wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. Tactical nukes aren't a likely step for Russia if Ukraine takes back their territory - even if they go for Crimea. Russia knows that any use of nuclear weapons is crossing a line, and that the regime is done if they do so. Is Putin not done politically if RU is defeated in UA, and Crimea is liberated / annexed? > 2. There isn't a reason for spying on these facilities if the goal is to analyze the US' ability to…

>Is Putin not done politically if RU is defeated in UA, and Crimea is liberated / annexed? Nicholas II wasn't done after Russo-Japanese war loss, Alexander II wasn't done after Crimean War, Lenin wasn't done after Polish-Soviet war, Yeltsin wasn't done after First Chechen War... why would Putin be done? History of russia is full of counterexamples and them presenting as "we'll win or we'll nuke whole world" is a prop…

Nicholas II ended the Romanov dynasty.

Alexander II was assasinated.

Lenin implemented the red terror to ensure his grip.

Yeltsin was forced to resign to... you guessed it; Putin.

All these may not have happened directly after the loss, but it definitely swayed public opinion against them.

Re: United States tells citizens: Leave Russia immediately

#82

Post by michaelt »

wrp wrote: post #66
csydas wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lived in Russia for 6 years prior to the invasion of Ukraine (2022 edition), and I can confirm that the US has frequently warned very heavily for basically all actions in Russia, even during peace times (before the first invasion of Ukraine even). I think even in 2015 when I went the first time, Russia was still on the 2nd level of warning despite overall decent relationships between the two countries at the time.…

I've been in several countries where the State Dept has made a habit of advising Americans not to stay. At least with the crowd I hang out with, it is generally seen as crying wolf. On the other hand, back in Soviet times, false arrests were a political tactic. I have a good story about that... I knew a guy who was in the USSR as a grad student in 1968. When the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia, he and his fellow Ameri…

> the State Dept [...] At least with the crowd I hang out with, it is generally seen as crying wolf.

If I told you there was a country where you should exercise increased caution because terrorists may attack with little or no warning, targeting tourist locations, major sporting and cultural events, and other public areas - can you guess what country that would be?

That's right, it's Belgium [1]

I can't imagine what a US State Department travel advisory for travel to the United States would look like....

[1] https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/international-tra...

Re: United States tells citizens: Leave Russia immediately

#83

Post by vbezhenar »

nradov wrote: post #64
rjzzleep wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes anyone on this platform believe that Ukraine has any chance of victory? It doesn't even have a working economy anymore, the US tax payer is paying both the government and the military's salaries. It's most resource rich areas are now in Russian hands. They started with over a thousand tanks, hundreds of jets, got hundreds of soviet tanks from various places, got hundreds of artillery pieces and hundreds of…

Ukraine has no chance of outright battlefield victory, however sufficient military aid can keep them in the fight and produce a grinding stalemate like in WW1. The hope is that this war of attrition will eventually lead to regime change in Russia and perhaps a further fragmentation of the country to continue the process started in 1991. Even if Russia holds together politically and continues to occupy parts of Ukrain…

IMO the only regime change likely in Russia will not make you happy. There're some very pro-military leaders arise recently. Putin does not allow for war to go full-scale. Those leaders will.

Fragmentation is possible but I don't believe it, at least for now.

Russia loses soldiers but they obtain much more soldiers with perfect battle training, they acquire priceless experience as to which weapons are effective and so on.

It's not that simple.

If anything, threat to eastern Europe is as huge as ever.

Sometimes I think that Putin slows this war on purpose. To train more soldiers, to weed out bad blood from commanders, to put their weapon to real test. Basically to build a real army.

Re: United States tells citizens: Leave Russia immediately

#84

Post by cpursley »

nicbou wrote: post #4

Summary: this is due to arbitrary arrests of US citizens, not an escalation of the conflict with Russia.

Can you share links/news of any recent arbitrary arrests of US citizens in Russia? I'm not suggesting it's not happening, just that I haven't seen any in the news.

Re: United States tells citizens: Leave Russia immediately

#86

Post by LemmyInThePub »

kypro wrote: post #8

Something that's been concerning me about all these UFOs being shot down is that perhaps it could be best explained by the start of something else building up... Realistically these UFO's aren't alien crafts but hostile spy drones. Perhaps the reason we haven't heard about these drones before could be that the US has never felt the need to act (the spying poses no real imminent threat), or maybe the hostile state sen…

> And in the event of a potential UA victory the use of tactical nuclear weapons from RU seem likely.

No.

The ISW consider Russia using nuclear weapons to be extremally unlikely; the Russian rhetoric around them simply being to provoke western fear (and thus delay the sending of western weapons), as you have so aptly demonstrated.

The ISW publish daily reports on the Ukraine war that are well worth reading

https://www.understandingwar.org/

A recent assessment by ISW of Putins nuclear threats are here:

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/special-report...

Re: United States tells citizens: Leave Russia immediately

#87

Post by esotericimpl »

californiadreem wrote: post #5
jb1991 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He likely genuinely believes they need to keep losing and losing much more badly than they are today before they can have a shot of turning the tide. I'm having some difficulty following your argument. You're saying Putin thinks Russia needs to keep losing the war so that eventually they can win it? I find that confusing.

"Judo (Japanese for “the gentle way”) emphasizes winning in combat by using your opponent's weight and strength as weapons against him, while preserving your own mental and physical energy."

[dead]

Re: United States tells citizens: Leave Russia immediately

#88

Post by inglor_cz »

w0m wrote: post #79
wrp wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been in several countries where the State Dept has made a habit of advising Americans not to stay. At least with the crowd I hang out with, it is generally seen as crying wolf. On the other hand, back in Soviet times, false arrests were a political tactic. I have a good story about that... I knew a guy who was in the USSR as a grad student in 1968. When the Soviets invaded Czechoslovakia, he and his fellow Ameri…

I'm surprised they'd bother actually planting something ahead of time.

Even totalitarian states change over time and Brezhnev's times were characteristic by their bureaucracy. Hence the planting of evidence ahead.

20 years earlier, the intended victims would probably be just kidnapped and shot, but their deaths would be recorded as executions.

Putin's era is characteristic by an inordinate amount of "accidents". Hey, change!

Re: United States tells citizens: Leave Russia immediately

#89

Post by objectivetruth »

rjzzleep wrote: post #45
barrkel wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And in the event of a potential UA victory the use of tactical nuclear weapons from RU seem likely The consensus military opinion I've read on this is that tactical nukes aren't very useful militarily; troops in the field are too dispersed. If there's a hardened target, then yes, otherwise not great. They then have to be weighed against the costs of crossing that Rubicon. > why they're suddenly so worried about the…

What makes anyone on this platform believe that Ukraine has any chance of victory? It doesn't even have a working economy anymore, the US tax payer is paying both the government and the military's salaries. It's most resource rich areas are now in Russian hands. They started with over a thousand tanks, hundreds of jets, got hundreds of soviet tanks from various places, got hundreds of artillery pieces and hundreds of…

[dead]

Re: United States tells citizens: Leave Russia immediately

#90

Post by notahacker »

rhaway84773 wrote: post #65
notahacker wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt the "spy drones" are of any particular military value anyway. It's more a test to see what will happen if you send something suspicious into your rival's airspace. The Trump administration chose to ignore them, the Biden administration in slightly different geopolitical circumstances chose to shoot them down. Since this would have been an anticipated outcome, I don't think it really changes anything other tha…

The U.S. has been pushing the UK to not include any Chinese equipment in any infrastructure they buy. It’s not clear to me what the Chinese could have learnt thst they didn’t already know.

I don't think they'd have learned much from the visuals of a balloon (it takes marginally higher resolution images than a satellite but so do lots of less obvious stuff like aircraft and consumer drones that are perfectly entitled to be in US airspace). But the US was pushing the UK not to include Chinese equipment (and indulging in some very loud anti-China rhetoric mostly for domestic consumption) under the previous administration but was too cautious to pull the trigger, so them not being too cautious now is new information. Unmanned balloons are obviously a lower risk way of testing that than other ways it could test the US tolerance, and may play well with Chinese domestic audiences too.
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