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Europe Can No Longer Ignore That It's Under Russian Attack

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Re: Europe Can No Longer Ignore That It's Under Russian Attack

#181

Post by js8 »

mrguyorama wrote: post #175
js8 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think so. I have russian coworkers who visited their family in Russia recently. They say there is more investment in infrastructure in Russia since the war. Basically, Russian oligarchs cannot invest abroad so they have to do it at home. So there are signs that the war helped Russia to resolve its "dutch disease" (a situation where a state relying on natural resource such as oil stunts its economic growth in…

No, you are misreading the situation. Russia is spending a lot of money and effort and resources internally because it has a near total wartime economy now. That is not a good thing . Nobody can eat a tank. You can't plow a field with a howitzer. Your economy suffers when you can make more money being a frontline soldier than you can being a skilled worker. Every single Shahed they build is a waste! And Russia's demo…

Well, you might be right, I agree that war is a waste of resources. But that's actually why EU should stop them, by offering Russia some tangible alternative, a path to prosperity. Instead we cut the ties completely (which we didn't do with U.S. when it attacked Iraq, Israel genociding Palestinians also doesn't seem to matter).

Instead, EU wants to embrace the same kind of (they call it) "military keynesianism". They think military spending will fix their economies. (In fact, attempt to use war as a way to prop up the economy was suggested as a reason why Putin started the war.)

It's also bad because longterm, it puts Russia on the same path the U.S. has been - a big weapons manufacturer that is looking to export a war somewhere.

Re: Europe Can No Longer Ignore That It's Under Russian Attack

#182

Post by tim333 »

dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #156
simonsarris wrote: post #105

Regarding the "why" of Russian drone/air shenanigans: I don't think Russia wants to get their expensive assets shot down or provoke a NATO-wide war. Many people seem to believe this but it presumes far too much. They don't gain from more fronts. They cannot realistically march into the west, they can't even march into west Ukraine. Realistically, Russia is doing these antics to force as many European countries as pos…

May be. During the meeting with EU diplomats in Moscow they were allegedly told the recent incidents are a payback for Ukraine's attack on Crimea. The diplomats didn't comment on that, though.

There's been fighting over Crimea for years. It doesn't ring true as a cause of new behavior.

One thing that is new though is Russians waiting in mile long lines for petrol while they watch their refineries explode. Moscow may be trying to widen the war as a domestic distraction from that not looking good.

At least if they mix it up with NATO they can say sorry we're in a war with NATO rather than the embarrassment of we picked on a country 1/4 our size and now they are beating us.

Re: Europe Can No Longer Ignore That It's Under Russian Attack

#183

Post by Yizahi »

js8 wrote: post #136
Yizahi wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Russia started the war in Ukraine to stop the NATO expansion."(c) - tell me now, exactly which NATO expansion has happened before the invasion of Ukraine, to trigger the war? You are lying, that's what it is. PS: to anyone else reading this, the last NATO expansion in the Russian direction has happened 10 years before the invasion, when Putin was hugging western leaders and not bothered at all by the "scary NATO". T…

Russia started those wars to prevent Georgia and Ukraine joining NATO, which was announced by G.W.Bush in 2007. I am not lying, read my comments more carefully.

This is an insane take. No one, not a single country, has even entertained an idea that Ukraine may join NATO. Not even in 2025, when everyone repeatedly tell Ukraine that NATO is out of the question, stop asking us. Even more, between 2010 and 2014 Ukrainian parliament has officially adopted a neutral status regarding NATO, just because it was clear it will never happen, NATO was too afraid.

So basically on one hand there is factual evidence that NATO did not expand towards Russia for 10 years before invasion, and that Ukraine got a firm rejection about joining NATO and resigned to it 4 years before invasion. And on the other hand is some remark of one person, no longer in charge of anything for a decade and who's remark contradicts all factual actions of his country and his government.

Yet again a kremlin lie, desperately trying to justify a war by looking for literally anything as a pretext and disregarding facts.

Re: Europe Can No Longer Ignore That It's Under Russian Attack

#184

Post by Yizahi »

fraboniface wrote: post #11

How do you (especially Europeans) understand this move from Russia? Can it really sustain a war against us? Does it want to break NATO by proving the US won't move?

Have you heard about accelerationism? This is an ideology of influential far right wing politicians and activists. They want to introduce as much world instability as they can, to break any existing structures where they a the losers. Then they hope when everything goes to hell, they will be the first to pick up the biggest pieces for themselves. This is Putin's real aim and this is why Trump is so baffled this whole year, he is giving Putin a victory and a way to exit the war one time after another and Putin rejects it repeatedly. This is because winning this war is not Putin's aim. His aim is total chaos in Europe, dissolution of the EU and NATO, and then he will pick up eastern scraps to form USSR 2.0. This is why trading thousand men for thousand square meters is acceptable to him. Wellbeing of humans or economy is a secondary thought to him.

Re: Europe Can No Longer Ignore That It's Under Russian Attack

#185

Post by Yizahi »

jacquesm wrote: post #176
js8 wrote: post #17

I am not sure what European "leaders" expected. Many of them support Ukraine militarily in the war, so yes, EU is in fact in war with Russia, through Ukraine as a proxy. I oppose the military support to Ukraine. I think it's responsibility of the stronger party, here NATO, to seek deescalation. I also disapprove that the military support for Ukraine was decided undemocratically, without any consideration whether this…

> I oppose the military support to Ukraine. That makes you a russia supporter in my book.

He admits he is in Czechia, which is coincidentally one of the three biggest spots for Russian emigration inside EU. Maybe even the biggest, if counted as a percentage of total population. No wonder there are a lot of imperialists there, he may be a Russian citizen himself, pining for the "spheres of influence" and "bipolar world".

Re: Europe Can No Longer Ignore That It's Under Russian Attack

#186

Post by Yizahi »

throwaway_dang wrote: post #76
adastra22 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is an informed statement. The Russian military had ALWAYS operated on grift and cronyism, all the way back to the napoleonic wars. When shit hits the fan, as in Crimea, WW1, WW2, and Ukraine, it turns out all those paper capabilities don’t exist. Even in the height of the Cold War, ICBM silos in Russia were often flooded and inoperable. Nuclear weapons are extremely sensitive and maintenance heavy devices. They ha…

Russia has its own satellite network, its own rockets, the most advance missiles in the world (and demonstrated usage), has continually bombed Kiev and other parts of Ukraine .. but sure, let's listen to you spout your detached-from-reality comments about nuclear war. Contrast this with many "advanced" nations such as UK, EU, Australia etc. that can't even get a rocket into space. There was a period recently where th…

Russia couldn't even bomb Kyiv reliably, before buying a drone manufacturing line from Iran, of all places. The sanctioned to the gills Iran apparently can produce a flying junker with a gas prop and a 100 kilos of explosives strapped to a planer, while Russia can't. This can tell us something. Russia can't even produce trucks from which to launch these drones, they are all western made on official photos.

Re: Europe Can No Longer Ignore That It's Under Russian Attack

#187

Post by UmGuys »

Yizahi wrote: post #184
fraboniface wrote: post #11

How do you (especially Europeans) understand this move from Russia? Can it really sustain a war against us? Does it want to break NATO by proving the US won't move?

Have you heard about accelerationism? This is an ideology of influential far right wing politicians and activists. They want to introduce as much world instability as they can, to break any existing structures where they a the losers. Then they hope when everything goes to hell, they will be the first to pick up the biggest pieces for themselves. This is Putin's real aim and this is why Trump is so baffled this whole…

This strategy is known as "disaster capitalism" and was explored by Naomi Klein in her book "The Shock Doctrine". Which details how UofChicago economists experimented on South America in addition to natural disasters, etc. The rich love to burn everything down so they can buy what's left for pennies. It's sick.

Re: Europe Can No Longer Ignore That It's Under Russian Attack

#188

Post by NicoJuicy »

js8 wrote: post #119
NicoJuicy wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah. Russia is boxing way beyond it's weight. It will collapse like in 1991 if we would even just put some tanks at the border ( eg. At Finland, Poland). ( Russia's banks are pretty vulnerable atm. )

I don't think so. I have russian coworkers who visited their family in Russia recently. They say there is more investment in infrastructure in Russia since the war. Basically, Russian oligarchs cannot invest abroad so they have to do it at home. So there are signs that the war helped Russia to resolve its "dutch disease" (a situation where a state relying on natural resource such as oil stunts its economic growth in…

That's probably all centered around Moscow and St. Petersburg?

All the wages were up, but are now coming down. They tried supporting the economy ( to not hit deflation), but that is crumbling soon

Note: I don't live there. But the central bank of Russia really has a competent head ( Elvira Sakhipzadovna Nabiullina ) that's worth listening too. She's so competent that Putin won't block/silence her too much.

Her latest statements are more grim: https://kyivindependent.com/russias-war-fueled-economy-is-ru...

Re: Europe Can No Longer Ignore That It's Under Russian Attack

#189

Post by Yizahi »

MattPalmer1086 wrote: post #179
mrguyorama wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that's wrong. The Kinzhal is just a normal ballistic missile. If it is "hypersonic", so were the missiles the US has sitting in bunkers. China has the first real "hypersonic" weapon. Besides, Russia's super awesome hypersonic missile that will totally kill the west is regularly intercepted by the Patriot platform. Because it's just a normal ballistic missile, which is what the Patriot is designed to intercept.

I was referring to the Oreshnik, not the Kinzhal. But I'm no missile expert.

All long and medium range rockets are hypersonic, simply by virtue of falling from space fast enough. From any country. So the "reached speed" metric is kinda pointless. Lately people tend to call rockets hypersonic is they can be controlled at the hypersonic flight stage. Oreshnic is an old ballistic missile, whose only innovation is removing third stage from an existing rocket, and can't be controlled with precision. This is why there was no significant damage and hits were all over the place with hundreds of meters of error. It is 80 million dollar equivalent of a single Smerch or Uragan shot, which is a pretty dumb and useless idea, considering price and complexity of a rocket.

Re: Europe Can No Longer Ignore That It's Under Russian Attack

#190

Post by dvfjsdhgfv »

tim333 wrote: post #182
dvfjsdhgfv wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May be. During the meeting with EU diplomats in Moscow they were allegedly told the recent incidents are a payback for Ukraine's attack on Crimea. The diplomats didn't comment on that, though.

There's been fighting over Crimea for years. It doesn't ring true as a cause of new behavior. One thing that is new though is Russians waiting in mile long lines for petrol while they watch their refineries explode. Moscow may be trying to widen the war as a domestic distraction from that not looking good. At least if they mix it up with NATO they can say sorry we're in a war with NATO rather than the embarrassment o…

> we picked on a country 1/4 our size

1/28th rather.

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