Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Putin may be planning to pummel Kyiv into submission

axios.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

271–280 of 287 posts

Re: Putin may be planning to pummel Kyiv into submission

#271

Post by HellDunkel »

cf141q5325 wrote: post #268
HellDunkel wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. There can and should be a Nato intervention. Maybe Ww3 is what follows next but that doesnt mean it will be a nuclear desaster. If we can send stingers we can send jets. If we can send jets we can send pilots. Step be step we can increase pressure. Putin is a strategic player, he is cold blooded not red headed.

You could however also be wrong and the reason for triggering the start of the end of the species. So maybe dont?

Appeasement politics during the nazi aera has brought suffering beyond words. I feel we ow to the victims of that time to never let this happen again- no matter what.

Re: Putin may be planning to pummel Kyiv into submission

#272

Post by lamontcg »

HellDunkel wrote: post #266
cf141q5325 wrote: post #116

Well yes. Artillery bombardment is THE Russian military doctrine. Any uncertainty on the headline would mean assuming Russia had developed some unusual qualms on the subject. And why would they? It seems to me that among the moral outrage people kind of lost touch with reality. There is some basic facts, take it here from the German public broadcast >According to its president, Russia is seeking the "denazification"…

I disagree. There can and should be a Nato intervention. Maybe Ww3 is what follows next but that doesnt mean it will be a nuclear desaster. If we can send stingers we can send jets. If we can send jets we can send pilots. Step be step we can increase pressure. Putin is a strategic player, he is cold blooded not red headed.

Putin is absolutely capable of tactical nuking military sites and airbases within Ukraine. He's probably willing to do that to bordering NATO countries if planes are flying out of them and Putin's back is against the wall. He'll take that next step that you can't fathom in order to stop you, since he figures you'll back down and won't escalate. Then, if we launch try to take out his nuclear capacity then he must launch all his missiles, and you've got WWIII and the end of the species more or less.

If you play the tit-for-tat ratcheting up escalation game with Putin then all of humanity is going to lose that one.

Right now its somewhat restrained since his generals won't want to launch nukes at NATO over the aid that has been given so far. When you cross a certain line so that Putin can argue that NATO bases in Europe are the proverbial dagger pointed at the heart of Russia and they must go so that Russia doesn't fall, then its much more likely that you've handed him the rationale for a tactical nuclear strike that his generals will follow.

Re: Putin may be planning to pummel Kyiv into submission

#273

Post by lamontcg »

xdennis wrote: post #256
curiousgal wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is genuinely not an attempt at flamewar but why can't civilians just leave? Russia is obviously going to win. It's the same with Palestenians, they obviously have not and will not win against Israel. The logical thing to do is to leave, suffer but be sure that your kids will have it better. But I reckon this isn't about logic?

> Russia is obviously going to win. It's not. It's going to be a repeat of Afghanistan for them. > The logical thing to do is to leave That's logical only for a coward. Many people won't give in to a bully, especially when they're winning. (Independent sources are saying 5800 dead orcs on 3 March. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukrai... )

> 5800 dead orcs

please, grow up, this is an actual human war we're trying to discuss. live in reality. there's no orcs and hobbits and wizards here.

i can only stomach about 30 seconds of reading the comments section on reddit before running into mindless stuff like this.

Re: Putin may be planning to pummel Kyiv into submission

#274

Post by HellDunkel »

lamontcg wrote: post #272
HellDunkel wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. There can and should be a Nato intervention. Maybe Ww3 is what follows next but that doesnt mean it will be a nuclear desaster. If we can send stingers we can send jets. If we can send jets we can send pilots. Step be step we can increase pressure. Putin is a strategic player, he is cold blooded not red headed.

Putin is absolutely capable of tactical nuking military sites and airbases within Ukraine. He's probably willing to do that to bordering NATO countries if planes are flying out of them and Putin's back is against the wall. He'll take that next step that you can't fathom in order to stop you, since he figures you'll back down and won't escalate. Then, if we launch try to take out his nuclear capacity then he must laun…

I agree that he is not Saddam Hussain and we should not try to hunt him. But as of right now his back is not against the wall at all.

Re: Putin may be planning to pummel Kyiv into submission

#275

Post by dogma1138 »

zpeti wrote: post #80

It makes sense why Zelensky is desperately asking for fighter jets. As long as Russia doesn’t control the skies it will be difficult to bomb Kiev into submission. I hope the poles manage to get some jets to them.

Russia has moved S400 into the theater already 30 jets won’t be enough.

It’s also not clear where they would be able to operate form since most airfields have been destroyed or damaged with long range missiles.

It would delay the inevitable at most.

Re: Putin may be planning to pummel Kyiv into submission

#276

Post by treis »

d1sxeyes wrote: post #270
scyzoryk_xyz wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is completely out of context. In 2010 Yanukovych won the vote and flat out declared that he would be halting all efforts to join the EU/NATO etc. This is what eventually triggered the EuroMaidan protests. It's also not so difficult to imagine that this was a response within a larger picture of two-way communication at the time. All the above says is 'welcoming aspirations' - basically 'we're happy that you want…

Hm, it's almost impossible to know how to properly contextualise the current story in Ukraine - the history is so complex. However, that's not my understanding of events - which I'm summarising below as neutrally as I can. This position from Nato (linked above) set in motion a chain of events starting with the Georgia war a few months later. In order to join Nato, Georgia needed to regularise Abkhazia and South Osset…

This is a very good summary. The only thing missing is a better back story of Crimea. Roughly, for the geographic reasons you noted it was an aspiration and then strategic territory of the Russian Empire for hundreds of years. It was transferred from Russia to Ukraine when they were both part of the USSR as a symbolic gesture and to ease administration.

Re: Putin may be planning to pummel Kyiv into submission

#277

Post by HellDunkel »

alkonaut wrote: post #148

The problem with the "if I can't conquer it, I'll just level it" offense, is that there is very little defense. Everyone is talking about how difficult it is to invade cities. But it's trivial to destroy cities if you have no regard for civilian casualties. The problem now is that the world can't meaningfully intervene because we didn't say beforehand that we would. We should have set up the no-fly zone with western…

If we had set up the nofly zone beforehand that would have been a welcome invitation for putin. Now that he has broken every international law these playbook rules are meaningless.

Re: Putin may be planning to pummel Kyiv into submission

#278

Post by scyzoryk_xyz »

oblio wrote: post #141
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Greece and Turkey demonstrate that the bar needs to be high.

What do you mean?

I would suspect these two countries and their “low” standard may be the point. My comment emphasized high standards and these two aren’t the best examples.

Re: Putin may be planning to pummel Kyiv into submission

#279

Post by EastSmith »

disambiguation wrote: post #235
hughrr wrote: post #76

Even if he succeeds in that, what is the end game? You now have an immutable hard border on one side of your country, are knee deep in sanctions which will not evaporate and another giant nation ready to take advantage of your poor position on the other side because they’re the only people who will even touch you with a 20 foot long stick. On top of that you have to now commit resources to permanently securing a whol…

This is recency bias. We imposed sanctions after the invasion of Crimea too, those eventually went away. In time these will too. I don't expect the West to be so well behaved that it can go on very long without cheap oil and gas.

Current sanctions are orders of magnitude larger. From last hour: "Credit rating agency Fitch states that Russian default on debt is "imminent”.

Re: Putin may be planning to pummel Kyiv into submission

#280

Post by Aeolun »

alephnan wrote: post #85
lmm wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well not posting troops in Ukraine doesn't seem to have stopped Ukraine getting invaded does it? So it seems that was empty rhetoric.

The red line was the expansion of the West. Putting troops in Ukraine is one way of satisfying that. The encroachment of NATO was another. Whether that is true or not, it would have given more weight to Russia/Putin’s argument than stuff about Nazis.

Right up until they went mental, Russia was pretty damn close to the west.

Especially with Putin gone and a more moderate leader.

Post reply on HN