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United States tells citizens: Leave Russia immediately

reuters.com

41–50 of 161 posts

Re: United States tells citizens: Leave Russia immediately

#41
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…

> such expensive weaponry if they thought UA had no chance? It seems likely they are betting on a UA victory and all that entails.

> And in the event of a potential UA victory

Ukraine are not going to win the "war", by any meaningful measure. There are no western countries that assign anything above a 0% probability of victory. The equipment that we are sending is excellent, but it is all old and literally surplus to requirements. The headline number (X bn of arms sent) makes for nice reading, but all the equipment would otherwise be rusting in a field somewhere and is better used being blown up (or blowing up some russian equipment) in the Ukraine.

The NATO tactic remains to contain the conflict, bog Russia down in a long drawn out campaign (decades would be great) and avoid having to actually face a pointless one sided war (direct russian conflict) that frankly would be embarrassing for everyone and simply result in the pointless killing of millions of people, while simultaneously making everyone hate each other even more from multiple generations.

Re: United States tells citizens: Leave Russia immediately

#42
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…

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Re: United States tells citizens: Leave Russia immediately

#43
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…

> Imo if UA is able to push RU back they're likely to try to reclaim annexed territories back from RU. It seems likely the US and allies would understand this is a probable outcome. After all would NATO countries be sending tanks and such expensive weaponry if they thought UA had no chance? It seems likely they are betting on a UA victory and all that entails.

And what USA/NATO believed about Afghanistan? They through a lot of resources at it and it didn't stop it from collapsing(or it even helped collapse because there were enough resources to steal, so cleptocrats had incentive to fight to rule Afghanistan).

Re: United States tells citizens: Leave Russia immediately

#44

I don’t buy the idea that Russia would conscript dual US-Russian citizens for one big reason: trust. For the same reason the US would avoid conscripting Russians. Also, we’ve been told on multiple occasions that Russia would declare martial law yet the borders are still open for military aged males.

Not sure where the idea of conscription is coming from for you.

It's not mentioned anywhere in the article.

Re: United States tells citizens: Leave Russia immediately

#45
post #10
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 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 thousands of ammunition and somehow we assume that the 120 stitched together leopard1, challenger, and other tanks will now be the wunderwaffe to help them win. All the while all authoritative western military institutions have said that the neither the US nor the EU can compete with Russia when it comes to either artillery nor missile production.

People on HN are engineers, how can we not comprehend that you can't just take random objects stitch them together and somehow the whole thing will still work. It's as if I'd have a rails project fire 90% of my engineering team and then hire cobol, C++ and Rust developers and then hope that if each one of them builds their own respective feature in their favourite language I can somehow stitch it together. Such a thing hardly makes sense for a random tank supply chain. Doesn't seem to work for the railway system which uses Soviet gauges and makes even less sense for an integrated air defense system.

EDIT: guys, how can you not talk about any of the facts when you guys respond?

When people agree that Ukraine loses multiple times as many people for every Russian that dies, when even the US Navy secretary says that Ukraine is depleting NATO weapon stocks, when even the thinktank that predicted the fall of the Russian government are now saying that NATO cannot match Russia in weapon stocks, then you are not winning, just because the borders don't change.

The border does not matter. What matters is how much western weapons and Ukrainian personal has been destroyed vs. Russia.

Russia has had 1 mobilization and those troops haven't even been committed to battle yet. Ukraine has gone through 12 or so. They lowered the mobilization age to 16. It goes up to 60 and it doesn't even exclude disabilities anymore. That's not winning. That's sacrificing your population.

Even the ex Israeli prime minister now said that the US blocked peace deals.

Re: United States tells citizens: Leave Russia immediately

#46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it wrong to assume that the two are not wholly unrelated activities?

It is reasonable to consider whether both motives apply, but one should also note that the former alone is sufficient reason for this action (and also sufficient reason for individual US citizens to carefully consider whether they want to be in Russia or its puppet states.)

[dead]

Re: United States tells citizens: Leave Russia immediately

#47
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most experts agree the conflict in UA will pick up again in the spring. And in the event of a potential UA victory the use of tactical nuclear weapons from RU seem likely. This is a very significant claim. Could you please provide some citations to support it?

It's "mud season", a period between winter and spring where it's hard to travel off-road because vehicles are prone to getting stuck in the mud. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/28/world/europe/ukraine-russ... . My understanding is that later in the Spring conditions begin to improve. The tanks the US and allies have been sending recently are likely in preparation for a remobilisation of Russias forces once the "mud s…

I'm sorry, I meant this part: "And in the event of a potential UA victory the use of tactical nuclear weapons from RU seem likely."

Re: United States tells citizens: Leave Russia immediately

#48
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most experts agree the conflict in UA will pick up again in the spring. And in the event of a potential UA victory the use of tactical nuclear weapons from RU seem likely. It doesn’t seem likely to me, I haven’t really heard that opinion from foreign policy experts on Hoover or the Economist etc. Of course anything is possible but it’s hard to see what would be gained.

I suppose I mean likely as in > 20% chance, not necessary the most likely outcome. RU has said that they will use nuclear weapons if their territory is threatened and UA and RU have territorial disputes. Personally I don't see a situation in which UA is able to take Crimea and RU doesn't launch a tactical nuke. Putin isn't going to allow Crimea to be taken, and I honestly suspect he'd rather risk his life than live w…

> if their territory is threatened

Yabbut the Russian government considers half of Ukraine to be Russian territory, including a good chunk of Donbas that they don't even occupy.

I don't think they'll try to use tactical nukes, even if Putin is on the rocks politically; it's really hard to occupy territory that's been devastated by a nuke, and you need the right equipment. The Russian forces are notoriously ill-equipped.

Also, I suspect the Russians doubt whether their tactical nukes actually work. These devices need constant maintenance, and critically they need fresh tritium. I doubt that manufacturing and distributing tritium is higher on the MoD's agenda than delivering artillery shells to the frontline.

Re: United States tells citizens: Leave Russia immediately

#49
post #31
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…

RU is gaining initiative since January. Most useful thing that UA got from NATO for now is military intelligence that has scale which maybe only China can match. This is available for UA since beginning. We still do not know how effective new weapons are going to be. Maybe that is why the volume of western tanks is so low. I don't think there will be Nukes.

> Most useful thing that UA got from NATO for now is military intelligence that has scale which maybe only China can match. This is available for UA since beginning.

I've read (months ago) that the intelligence Ukraine is getting from US is relatively limited and already filtered out / processed. It's probably one of the tools US is using to "steer" the war.

Re: United States tells citizens: Leave Russia immediately

#50
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most experts agree the conflict in UA will pick up again in the spring. And in the event of a potential UA victory the use of tactical nuclear weapons from RU seem likely. It doesn’t seem likely to me, I haven’t really heard that opinion from foreign policy experts on Hoover or the Economist etc. Of course anything is possible but it’s hard to see what would be gained.

I suppose I mean likely as in > 20% chance, not necessary the most likely outcome. RU has said that they will use nuclear weapons if their territory is threatened and UA and RU have territorial disputes. Personally I don't see a situation in which UA is able to take Crimea and RU doesn't launch a tactical nuke. Putin isn't going to allow Crimea to be taken, and I honestly suspect he'd rather risk his life than live w…

Russia has also said it will not attack Ukraine. Russia has also said their flagship sunk in a storm. Russia has also said there are American biolabs in Ukraine making supersoldiers.

What Russia says is worthless. Not sure what makes you serve as their personal rebroadcasting device.

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