Russia Attacks Ukraine (nytimes.com) 637
Russia President Vladimir V. Putin declared the start of a "special military operation" in Ukraine on Thursday, after months of speculation about Russia's intentions as it massed tens of thousands of troops on Ukraine's border. The New York Times: Addressing his nation in a televised speech broadcast just before 6 a.m. Thursday, Mr. Putin said his goal was to "demilitarize" but not occupy the country. Minutes later, large explosions were visible near Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, and blasts were reported in Kyiv, the capital, and other parts of the country. Ukraine's Interior Ministry said that Russian troops had landed in Odessa and were crossing the border. "The invasion has begun," the ministry said in a statement.
Ukraine's foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said on Twitter that Mr. Putin had "started a full-scale war against Ukraine" and had begun shelling civilian cities. "This is a war of aggression," he wrote on Twitter. "Ukraine will defend itself and win. The world must act and stop Putin. It is time to act -- immediately." Evoking the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 and the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, Mr. Putin cast his action as a long-overdue strike against an American-led world order that he described as an "empire of lies." Even as he spoke, the United Nations Security Council held an emergency meeting imploring him not to invade. In bellicose language, Putin also issued what appeared to be a warning to other countries: "Anyone who tries to interfere with us, or even more so, to create threats for our country and our people, must know that Russia's response will be immediate and will lead you to such consequences as you have never before experienced in your history. We are ready for any turn of events." More coverage: NBC News, The Guardian and The Moscow Times.
Ukraine's foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said on Twitter that Mr. Putin had "started a full-scale war against Ukraine" and had begun shelling civilian cities. "This is a war of aggression," he wrote on Twitter. "Ukraine will defend itself and win. The world must act and stop Putin. It is time to act -- immediately." Evoking the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 and the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, Mr. Putin cast his action as a long-overdue strike against an American-led world order that he described as an "empire of lies." Even as he spoke, the United Nations Security Council held an emergency meeting imploring him not to invade. In bellicose language, Putin also issued what appeared to be a warning to other countries: "Anyone who tries to interfere with us, or even more so, to create threats for our country and our people, must know that Russia's response will be immediate and will lead you to such consequences as you have never before experienced in your history. We are ready for any turn of events." More coverage: NBC News, The Guardian and The Moscow Times.
Don't pray for PEACE (Score:5, Insightful)
Pray for Ukrainian Victory. Because only then — with Russia defeated — will lasting peace be possible.
Re:Don't pray for PEACE (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think that is in the cards.
About the only way that could happen is if Russia's actual goals differ wildly from their stated goals. From the reports that I've seen, Ukraine's navy has been destroyed. If they still have an air force, they probably don't dare use it. Any command and control centers that were in fixed locations are probably gone already.
If Russia's actual goal is to "protect" the new republics, which are full of Russian-speaking ethnically Russian people, Russian troops will either fall back to, or never go beyond, those new republics, at least not in visible formations. If that happens, the world response will be nothing.
The only path to a Ukranian Victory is if the rest of the world gets involved. And, the only way there will be a world response will be if Russia acts like it intends to occupy or annex the Ukranian-speaking ethnically Ukranian remainder of Ukraine. Such a scenario is only possible if Russia is lying about their intentions, and Putin is simultaneously really, really bad at strategy. The first one is pretty much a given, but the second one is a tough sell.
My guess - world leaders claim that it would have been much worse if they hadn't delivered strongly worded rebukes to Russia. Nordstream quietly re-opens before next Winter. Nordstream 2 starts operating within a few years. 5 to 8 years from now, no one will remember this, just like they already don't remember Crimea.
Re:Don't pray for PEACE (Score:5, Interesting)
Ukraine doesn't need to win, it just needs to not give up. This is precisely what happened in Vietnam against America, what happened in Afghanistan against the Russians and what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan against the west.
Ukraine just has to make it bloody enough for Russia that it's unviable and if all or most it's territory is seized resort to guerrilla tactics.
And this is where Russia will struggle; Russian aircraft don't use targeting pods like the West that let them view targets from high altitude, and launch precision guided munitions at them, they have poor IRST tech. You may be thinking well, who cares? But this is a really big deal. It means Russia can't hit moving targets from high altitude, and it means they can't precision strike dug in locations from high altitude with any meaningful accuracy. It means that to deal with these types of targets from the air, it really has to come in low, and guess what? That makes it all vulnerable to Polish Groms, and American Stingers that have been provided.
It has thousands of armoured vehicles, but has also been provided thousands of the latest man portable anti-tank weapons in the Western arsenal; these aren't last decades left overs, these are literally the latest anti-armour weapons the West fields.
None of this is enough to stop Russia rolling through Ukraine and being tentatively press across the whole territory - it can do that on force of numbers alone, but it's enough to ensure that the more this war drags on, the more Russia's military will suffer serious depletion, it's enough to leave their military combat ineffective for at least a decade in any meaningful conflict. We're only 4 hours in an Russia has already lost 0.1% of it's airforce.
It's also worth taking a step backing and looking at the lead up to this; on one hand you could assume that Biden's repeated briefings of "it's going to be next week, it's going to be tomorrow" and so on were examples of incompetence. Another way of looking at it is that pretty much everything they said - the recognising of breakaway regions, the false flag operations, did indeed happen, and were of little value. You can look at the fact that Putin visibly dressed down his intelligence chief on TV because he didn't want to commit to this kind of course of action, you could point to intelligence stating Russian generals didn't want to invade. You've even got a rare admission from Putin live on TV that he accepts he can't stand up to NATO conventionally followed by a reminder he has nukes though. Then contrast that to Ukraine, you've had civilians training for weeks, you've had arrival of equipment you've had widespread protests.
So on one hand you've got Ukrainians willing to fight to defence their homeland, on the other you've got Putin whose entire invasion plans have been thrown into tatters with forewarned transparency of his plans who is now going into a war his intelligence chiefs and generals have been advising against and don't want to fight just because he's pissed off that his usual smooth methods of subversion have fallen embarrassingly flat.
That's not a winning formula. The West couldn't even hold Afghanistan despite the number of insurgents being far lower than Ukraine can muster (~50,000 insurgents, vs. 300,000+ militarised Ukrainians) and despite the West being able to search, find, and track from high altitude with no risk to their air or armour from man-portable weapons other than IEDs.
Providing the Ukrainians are in it for the long haul, it's all but guaranteed that Putin is going to come out of this with a severely depleted military and a bloody nose. Ukraine doesn't have to win, it just has to wait for Russia to lose. Even if Russia pulls back to Donetsk and Luhansk, then they're facing a war of attrition against a Ukraine that will be fed ever more money and weapons from the West - far more than Russia could ever hope to muster.
I also think you're wrong about Nordstream 2 reopening, it's not dead in the water - it's not just Germany pausing
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If the world wanted to respond, it would have left forces in Ukraine. And any world response would result in a World War in which nuclear weapons would be deployed. Anyone involved would be in a situation where they'd not be able to back down, Russia can't afford to lose.
And this means Russia would use cyberwarfare, as it usually does. However, according to this side, "the 2018 NPR (the policy document that governs the use of nuclear weapons) text suggests that the administration added two additional circum
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How do you propose to do that? They can access Chinese satellites from ground stations, so unless you shoot the satellites down, the Russians will have Internet access and be able to VPN to seem to come from anywhere.
We also don't know if any of their zombie networks have code that will trigger if not sent a command every so often. Given the long build-up to the war, it would have been an obvious thing for them to add.
And there will be Russians in other countries, either active agents or sleeper agents, who
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I don't think that is in the cards.
About the only way that could happen is if Russia's actual goals differ wildly from their stated goals. ...
If Russia's actual goal is to "protect" the new republics, which are full of Russian-speaking ethnically Russian people, Russian troops will either fall back to, or never go beyond, those new republics, at least not in visible formations.
That comment didn't even age well for an hour.
Big Assumption (Score:3)
The only path to a Ukranian Victory is if the rest of the world gets involved. And, the only way there will be a world response will be if Russia acts like it intends to occupy or annex the Ukranian-speaking ethnically Ukranian remainder of Ukraine. Such a scenario is only possible if Russia is lying about their intentions, and Putin is simultaneously really, really bad at strategy. The first one is pretty much a given, but the second one is a tough sell.
For starters I'm going to assume by "rest of the world" you mean NATO as no one else can even project their military all the way over to Europe in any meaningful amount of time
After that, I think you're making a big Assumption that NATO will respond if the rest of Ukraine is invaded. The leaders of many NATO countries have specifically told their people that their military will not be involved in Ukraine. I know Boris in the UK has.
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Re:Don't pray for PEACE (Score:5, Insightful)
So the question here is how smart is Putin really. It seems to me he can 'take the win' here having added to the buffer between Russia an NATO, probably enjoy some economic dividends form the captured territories (excuse me new republics -LOL) and he will have done it on the cheap, in terms of losses to forces, domestic political good will, and really 'sanctions' that are not a whole lot more aggressive or debilitating than what has been in place. Meanwhile China is still more than happy to buy his energy and sell goods into the Russian economy.
Or he can go to far and trigger a NATO response....
Which quite honestly I think is bad for everybody. I don't care what party you belong to, the beating of the war drum is unwise. It may be that we (America) can't avoid being drawn into the fighting but that really really ought to be off the table until a bright line like an actual incursion into a NATO territory happens. Can we defeat Russia, yes for certain. Will it be like Iraq/Afghanistan/Syria where we had air superiority from day 0.. No it wont. This won't be one of those conflicts where we lose as many folks to accidents as enemy action! We will not be fighting a disorganized badly disciplined force with 40+ year old weapons.
We will be fighting a practiced professional organization with equipment that might not have advanced as much as ours post USSR but has not be standing as still as some folks seem to think. Russia has recent practice coordinating air and ground forces in Syria that is practical rather than theoretical. In a direct conflict with American Air Force and Army they won't prevail but they will send a lot of young boys and now probably girls too home in body bags. They will destroy a lot of expensive assets. We should NOT want to do this unless we absolutely are forced into it.
Re: Don't pray for PEACE (Score:2)
Re:Don't pray for PEACE (Score:5, Insightful)
Pray for Ukrainian Victory. Because only then — with Russia defeated — will lasting peace be possible.
Apparently needs to be quoted against censor trolls with mod points. Perhaps Putin goons are wasting some of their time on the soft target known as Slashdot?
However, I think it's too optimistic. Ukraine cannot realistically hope to defeat Russia without substantial international support, and that is unlikely to appear. The Ukrainians can make the initial invasion moderately expensive and a long-term guerrilla war could become as expensive to Russia as Afghanistan was, but an outright Ukrainian victory doesn't seem plausible. Putin is obviously thinking of Chechen rather than Afghanistan as his model for this invasion...
I hope I'm wrong about international support, but in particular America looks too weak and divided to be of much help. Too few Americans realize they are #ReaganRINOs and not actually part of the fake Republican Party (which is now most similar to Lenin's Bolshivik Party). Most of Europe should be afraid of Putin's success in Ukraine, but they may not have the stomach to get involved militarily. Ukraine's future looks bleak. But I remember reading about Holodomor, and I'm sure lots of Ukrainians are going to fight quite hard because of that history with Russia...
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Are you serious? According to the most recent data, Russia has around 900,000 troops right now. Ukraine? Less than 200,000. Do the math.
Unless Russia intends to turn Ukraine into a glass parking lot one need only look at how US adventures of the last couple decades against goat herders turned out to know why such metrics are worthless.
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The have 5x the aircraft and 10x the missiles. That is where it counts.
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Fewer than 200K were at Ukraine's borders.
An attacker needs 5-10 fold advantage over the defender. Do the math.
Not any more. USA has attacked Iraq with numerically inferior army. US Army had vast technological superiority over Iraqis, the same as Russians have vast technological superiority over the Ukrainians. The real question is how good is the Russian army? How capable officers they have and whether their generals are top notch professionals or political appointees. And how well prepared the Ukrainian army is? Ukraine cannot win this, but it can turn it into a bloodbath which would have repercussions at home in
Re:Don't pray for PEACE (Score:5, Insightful)
An attacker needs 5-10 fold advantage over the defender. Do the math.
Not really, the number of troops is rather meaningless with today's long range weaponry.
Ukraine has stationary targets to defend that are vulnerable to long range missile strikes. Any serious weapons capable of causing a headache for russia are large and bulky, russia already knows where these are and can strike them from a distance with missiles while putting their own troops at little or no risk.
Once air superiority has been obtained and all serious anti aircraft facilities destroyed, all those troops on the ground are sitting ducks and are easily picked off. By the time any ground troops roll in, there will be no serious military resistance to speak of.
The only thing that won't get wiped out is an insurgent force, hiding amongst the population where they can't be easily detected from air/space. This generally means small strikes, improvised weaponry etc. And while these kind of attacks are only taking place in ukraine russia isn't really going to care too much, it's only if such forces start blowing things up in moscow that it will get their attention.
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An attacker needs 5-10 fold advantage over the defender. Do the math.
Not really, the number of troops is rather meaningless with today's long range weaponry.
Ukraine has stationary targets to defend that are vulnerable to long range missile strikes. Any serious weapons capable of causing a headache for russia are large and bulky,... russia already knows where these are and can strike them from a distance with missiles while putting their own troops at little or no risk.
Once air superiority has been obtained and all serious anti aircraft facilities destroyed, all those troops on the ground are sitting ducks and are easily picked off. By the time any ground troops roll in, there will be no serious military resistance to speak of.
The only thing that won't get wiped out is an insurgent force, hiding amongst the population where they can't be easily detected from air/space. This generally means small strikes, improvised weaponry etc. And while these kind of attacks are only taking place in ukraine russia isn't really going to care too much, it's only if such forces start blowing things up in moscow that it will get their attention.
I do of course agree that raw manpower numbers are pointless. But not all weapons capable of causing headaches for Russia are easily degraded by bombardments. They have however received manportable FGM-148 Javelin anti-tank missiles and FIM-92 Stinger anti-aircraft missiles. Those may incur a toll and deterrence on Russian armor and aircraft even after the main air defences have been degraded. And especially if they get more of them.
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In terms of a decisive repulsion of the overwhelming invading force? No, the Ukrainians have got nothing. On the other hand, like with the US invasion of Iraq, or of Afghanistan before that, or the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan before that, the locals can sure make the invaders' lives hell, and rack up serious costs even without delivering substantial military blows.
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Re:Don't pray for PEACE (Score:5, Insightful)
The "enemy" is not the Russian people or the Russian military - it's just a very small number of individuals at the top, basically having access to everything they desire. ...) for their children.
Deny them that access, and you will make them reconsider.
No ski vacations in Austrian Alps. No mansions in Cote d'Azur. No shopping in Paris. No Britain football teams. No Disneyland (or Yale, or Harvard, or
Let them enjoy their summer vacations in Cuba, their mansions in Beijing, their winter vacations in Northern Caucasus.
Let them enjoy flying Aeroflot instead of Lufthansa.
Re:Don't pray for PEACE (Score:5, Funny)
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Khm, this thread is about Russian invasion of Ukraine. Republicans didn't invade Ukraine, they haven't even been on the board of the national Ukrainian oil company. Being a libertarian, I am no fan of GOP, but GOP is not to blame for the Russian invasion on Ukraine. As for the Marxist cult, it's slowly dying everywhere.
True, they are just simping for Putin: https://www.newsweek.com/trump... [newsweek.com]
Re:Don't pray for PEACE (Score:5, Informative)
can you point to anything said or written by Marx that would have supported what you call "Marxist style socialism"?
Not quite what you asked, but close enough:
"... there is only one way in which the murderous death agonies of the old society and the bloody birth throes of the new society can be shortened, simplified and concentrated, and that way is revolutionary terror." -- Karl Marx, The Victory of the Counter-Revolution in Vienna, [marxists.org] Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 136, Nov. 1848.
There's also this one by Engels:
"The next world war will result in the disappearance from the face of the earth not only of reactionary classes and dynasties, but also of entire reactionary peoples. And that, too, is a step forward." -- Friedrich Engels, The Magyar Struggle, [anu.edu.au] Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 194, Jan. 1849.
The thing is, in Marxist ethics there's one core moral value that comes first, front and center, everything else being secondary to it. It's the duty to disalienate the world. The fundamental idea is that what we consider right or wrong is a result of the material mode of production, that is, there is no absolute right or wrong, they're always dependent of something else. Changing this something else therefore changes what counts as right and what counts as wrong, in a way that cannot be predicted. Therefore, the revolutionary shouldn't care much about what today is seen as right and wrong, what counts is changing that something, whatever it takes, as in the end this will create new rights and wrongs, and they'll be thanked by future generations for having helped bring the (new) right things -- whatever those may be.
That's why, from a Marxist perspective, massacring people isn't necessarily wrong. It's wrong, strictly speaking, if, and only if, doing such a massacre would hinder the disalienation of the world. And it's strictly right if it'll help bring about that disalienation. As for other circumstances, such as when committing a massacre will neither hinder nor help disalienation, it's recommended the Marxist follow current morality, as that helps gather popular support for when, down the line, they need do something that might go against it -- such as the need to cause a famine, for example.
Re:Don't pray for PEACE (Score:4, Insightful)
No, it's not the "No true Scotsman". It's about the difference between labels and contents.
Just like North Korea calling itself a democracy not meaning we expect democracies to have supreme leaders, total media control and suppression of expression of self, a raw dictatorship calling itself Marxist does not mean we redefine Marxism.
The point being made isn't even that Marxism would work but that it's badly mischaracterized. The issues that befell the Soviet sphere in the 30's were not caused by any doctrine of Marx, but by doctrines of Stalin. In Marxism, the working class was to rise up against the rulers, but the big Soviet famine was the exact opposite - it was intended to curb the working class.
The ones who wanted to control people through starving them were not only different from Marx in approach, they were in stark opposition to Marxism. Stalin did not care about working class deaths, as long as he maintained power. He deliberately starved regions to quell rebellions and regain control over the very people Marxism held were to rule.
The Holodomor was the result of the opposite political path Marxism dictates.
Europe, oil (Score:2)
Re: Europe, oil (Score:3)
Re: Europe, oil (Score:5, Insightful)
If you own stock in any Taiwanese companies, sell it. The complete lack of western military response is all that Xi Ping Ping needs to know that he can take over Taiwan whenever.
The US response in eastern Europe has little to do with a potential response in east Asia. Russia is not a peer competitor to the US, and won't be even in our children's lifetime. China on the other hand has that capability, with a GDP nearly 10x that of Russia. In addition, Taiwan has an economy 4x the size of Ukraine and has a US trade volume 30x larger.
Ukraine simply doesn't matter to the US. This is the reason the US isn't doing anything. That isn't a criticism of the nation, most nations aren't of unique interest to most other nations.
Taiwan does matter to the US. It is the US's 9th largest trading partner (Ukraine is #67). It leads the world in IC manufacturing. It is a democratic nation in southeast Asia, which has the same level of global importance to the US that Europe did in the 20th century.
I don't know precisely what the US response to a Chinese invasion of Taiwan would look like, but I do know this Ukraine situation provides little to no insight.
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Think what a nothing Russia would be already if Europe didn't need Russia's oil & gas.
Like if the main export of the Middle East was broccoli instead of oil?
Re:Europe, oil (Score:5, Insightful)
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USA, oil, as well
Only Canada delivers more oil than Russia to the US.
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The numbers mean bugger all as long as the USA happily continues to import oil from Russia. Unlike Germany that stopped the North Stream 2 project yesterday.
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The numbers mean bugger all as long as the USA happily continues to import oil from Russia. Unlike Germany that stopped the North Stream 2 project yesterday.
Germany halted a new project to get oil from Russia, but didn't put a dent in the oil imports it already is getting.
And you are partially right about the US still having dependency of Russian oil. You are wrong about the numbers not mattering though. The US gets 7% of its oil from Russia, while 34% of Germany's oil comes from there. This is a big difference. The US could easily cut off all imports of Russian oil, and the worst that would happen is a little more expensive gasoline. If Germany tried cutting o
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https://www.reuters.com/busine... [reuters.com]
Re: Europe, oil (Score:3)
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Russia carries out extensive trade with China and had already ceased most trading with Europe. Its natural resources are extensive and apparently it is the major supplier of a variety of metals necessary for manufacture in Europe.
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That's isn't going to help much. The problem isn't so much general availability as scarcity. And there aren't enough LNG terminal import capacity across EU, nor US export capacity on the US East Coast even if LNG wasn't far more expensive than Russian piped methane.
So European poor will still be freezing.
Swift action requires SWIFT action (Score:4, Insightful)
They should have been cut off from all financial markets yesterday.
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would have made no difference...
Re:Swift action requires SWIFT action (Score:5, Insightful)
By telegraphing Russia's every move before they did it and warning of the consequences ahead of time, everything has been laid bare.
Russia is about to become a poor and weak nation, although not overnight. Its GDP is already down 30% from 10 years ago, and now it will be driven much further.
Re:Swift action requires SWIFT action (Score:5, Insightful)
And if Putin was a truly great leader, he would have cared for his people and helped hem raise their standard of living. But no, oligarchs, the orthodox church (religions don't get capitals from me), expansion of his territory just shows that he is a petty dictator. And by starting the attack he has lost all last vestiges of the bit of trust that he may have had.
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Aside from Trump, who's never met an autocrat he didn't want to fellate, no one has ever accused Putin of being a "truly great leader."
Yeah, Trump was really craft, getting Putin to attack Ukraine both before and after he was president but not during ...
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Judging from the sheer tasteless pimp style bling-bling he had his palace decorated with, he is as petty as they come.
Re: Swift action requires SWIFT action (Score:5, Insightful)
Sanctions hurt the people, not the pricks in power. How well have sanctions worked against Cuba or N. Korea or Iran? What the US has done to Cuba is immoral, and achieved nothing useful in over half a century. Russia has spent the last 8 years becoming more independent and decoupled from the West, and built connections with places like China. Incidentally, China are watching this closely because they want Taiwan back. Russia is vastly bigger than the third world countries where sanctions havenâ(TM)t worked, so what makes you think theyâ(TM)ll achieve anything? They certainly wonâ(TM)t free the people of Ukraine. Sanctions are no better than virtue signally that hurt that cause collateral damage to the wrong people.
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The sanctions being imposed now are on individuals, rather than Russia as a whole, so the idea is that they don't hurt ordinary Russians. The real problem is that many of those Russians are big donors to the ruling Conservative Party in the UK, and keep a lot of their wealth in London. Obviously the Conservatives are not going to sanction the people funding them, or investigate their assets too closely, so the sanctions won't do much.
Re: Swift action requires SWIFT action (Score:5, Insightful)
My point about Taiwan is that China will be watching how the West react to this conflict as part assessing the cost of taking back Taiwan.
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Re:Swift action requires SWIFT action (Score:5, Insightful)
whatever happened to searching not for agreement, but simply understanding of those you disagree with? If you had done that for even one second, you’d see your perspective is complete horse shit. Agree with it or not, but many of those protesting have a different view and value of “Freedom”, which simply means things like the govt isn’t allowed to prevent your return to your home country. Again, disagree all you want but your ability to listen and comprehend is shit.
Many of the truckers believe in stupid or wrong things when it comes to vaccines. That’s not a reason to deeply hate someone and denigrate them, or worse, lump them in with the worst of the worst in humanity. These people simply drove a convoy protest, which has been done many times, amd for some baffling reason the police let them all hunker down right across downtown Ottawa. The ONLY reason it went so long is retards like you jumped in the first second and dismissed the people themselves as “unacceptable”, and use ridiculous names like terrorists or n@zis. It was quite reasonable to provide a timetable for removal of restrictions, which was due anyway. Then everyone could safely ignore the stupid shit they say, but noyou dumb motherfuckers had to one up then with words like terrorism and n@zis, which is officially way dumber than even the most crazy vaccine conspiracy theory. Grow up, and try actually countering hate instead of adding to it.
Call for all IT crowd (Score:2)
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So the rumours were true? https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Surprised he even bothers (Score:5, Insightful)
Does anyone actually believe that Ukraine is run by Nazis? That NATO is somehow a threat to Russia? That the separatists begged for intervention?
He might have well said he was saving Ukraine from an invasion from Mars.
I'm as big a critic of the US's military adventurism as anyone, but there's a big difference between attacking a nation to try and stop a genocide or overthrow a dictator and Putin's wars that involve installing dictators and capturing territory.
Putin is the villain in this conflict, and anyone who defends Putin is knowingly defending a villain because no one is stupid enough to think he's the good guy.
As some point Russians need to take responsibility for their country and stop enabling monsters.
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Putin is the villain in this conflict, and anyone who defends Putin is knowingly defending a villain because no one is stupid enough to think he's the good guy.
Um... Trump calls Putin 'genius' and 'savvy' for Ukraine invasion [politico.com]
Re:Surprised he even bothers (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Surprised he even bothers (Score:5, Insightful)
I've never really understood this sort of thinking. In what way is Putin savvy? He murders and bullies and intimidates and clings to power, sure. He's great at corruptly lining his own pockets. He uses the traditional playbook of providing a thin (and obviously fake) political pretext for invading a country. None of that is savvy. Savvy would be if he was any good at his actual job. Russia's economy is in the tank. They're going into a war of territorial acquisition that's going to buy the actual country nothing except trouble. What's the point? Posterity? If he holds on to power, ten years after he's dead (probably about 15 years from now considering that he's reported to have Parkinson's and cancer and the life expectancy of Russian men of his generation was about 50 years and it's still only about 68 for Russian men born today, although that number may be brought down somewhat due to the risk of being murdered by Putin) most of the Russian population are going to have a fairly realistic idea of what he actually was as they slowly try to crawl out of the hole he left them in.
Re:Surprised he even bothers (Score:5, Insightful)
Ukraine joining NATO is a threat to Russia, just like the USSR putting missiles in Cuba was a threat to the United States. So is joining the EU, which would bring the EU's border right up to the Russian one.
There are some Nazis in Ukraine, but they aren't running things. They are something that the parts of Ukraine that identify as Russian are upset about, but obviously don't justify a military invasion. It's really just an excuse to bolster their claims of independence, with a view to them becoming Russian again "legitimately" by some joke of a "democratic" process.
Re:Surprised he even bothers (Score:5, Informative)
Ukraine joining NATO is a threat to Russia, just like the USSR putting missiles in Cuba was a threat to the United States. So is joining the EU, which would bring the EU's border right up to the Russian one.
Ukraine joining NATO and the EU would not "bring the EU's border right up to the Russian one" because the EU's border is already right up to the Russian one. Estonia, Latvia and Finland all border Russia and the former two are NATO members. If NATO wanted missiles close to Moscow, there is no place in Ukraine that's closer than the land they already have.
I also love the idea is that somehow NATO is a bigger threat to Russia than Russia is to Ukraine.
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Mod parent up ...
What's more, there is a distinct difference between becoming a NATO member and actually putting up missiles next to the Russian border. If NATO wanted to do that, they could have done it at will a long time ago. Latvia is some 500km away from Moscow. Can't get much closer to that. Russia in turn has the Kaliningrad Exclave, it actually borders Poland. The Iskander they had there at one point were in spitting distance of Warsaw and Berlin and could have obliterated those cities within minu
Re:Surprised he even bothers (Score:5, Insightful)
Russia has now recognized some of the areas where they are trying to break away from Ukraine to re-join Russia.
What the actual fuck dude, that is precisely Putin's point of view, and it is a deliberate misdirection. Russia has now claimed those areas as part of Russia, given them fancy names, and moved troops into them (killing opposition troops in the process.)
The problem is that if Ukraine joins the EU or NATO it will be much harder for those areas to break away.
The people in those areas, like the rest of Ukraine, overwhelmingly support being part of Ukraine. Some people in them don't, so what? Lots of people living in Texas would support giving it back to Mexico, that doesn't make it Mexico.
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So is joining the EU, which would bring the EU's border right up to the Russian one.
This seems to me to have been the big mistake. The underestimating by the EU leadership of how important Crimea is to Russia opened this Pandora's Box right up and now people are dying. Meanwhile Boris is doing his best to make this a Falklands moment - act big on the world stage and hope everyone forgets what a cunt you are. But Russia isn't Argentina.
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Russia already borders Latvia, Estonia and Finland, which are part of the EU already. There are also NATO nuclear missiles in Turkey and over other parts of Europe, all in pretty easy firing distance of Moscow. Materially, I don't think it would make much of a difference. It's not like they couldn't just launch from a nuclear sub in the Baltic sea either. There's no special threat from Ukraine. This is pretty much 100% about reclaiming lost territory that Putin thinks Russia owns. The parallels to Lebensrau
Re: Surprised he even bothers (Score:3, Interesting)
Does anyone actually believe that Ukraine is run by Nazis?
Don't know. Did anyone claim that? (Genuine question.)
That NATO is somehow a threat to Russia?
Ok, so let's see.
Putin asked to be accepted into NATO in 2000 and was declined.
During the 2+4 contract talks Russia was explicitly guaranteed that a NATO expansion beyond the Elbe (that's Dreden, Germany) will never take place. NATO is now in Romania, has been for decades.
Even if we forget for a moment that NATO military is essentially US military and US policy: NATO is arguably the most powerful military organisation ever. It was created to ensure peace
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I'm as big a critic of the US's military adventurism as anyone, but there's a big difference between attacking a nation to try and stop a genocide or overthrow a dictator and Putin's wars that involve installing dictators and capturing territory.
I'm against Putin's bullshit full stop, but when did the US invade a nation for the purpose of stopping a genocide or overthrowing a dictator? We generally only overthrow democratically elected leaders. Most of the rest of the time we're just invading for profit. On the rare occasion that we're stopping a dictator, i.e. Saddam, we created them by selling/giving them materiel, training, and other supplies.
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So are you saying that Trump is stupid?
Among other things - all negative, and not to be repeated in polite company - yes.
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I think the US is having good luck with presidents... it gets those it deserves.
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Looks like one of the old slashdot bugs ate the end of your comment. Here is the rest of it.
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I didn't see the rest of the comment as relevant since he was talking about Biden and himself there. The only portion I was concerned about was him complimenting Putin. I skimmed through the rest of the interview but didn't see anything else that was on the topic or provided a disclaimer to the topic, but figured by linking to the original source rather that other people's opinions was the most informative path.
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> in the interests of both his country and his nation
You misspelled "his cronies and his own"
Re:Surprised he even bothers (Score:4, Insightful)
As for the second part, your type sure were lovely back in the 1930s. I mean, who really cares about the Sudetenland and Poland? Not in our interest what happens there.
Re:Surprised he even bothers (Score:5, Insightful)
If Putin is not a gibbering lunatic who believes the garbage that comes out of his mouth and his regime has been flooding the zone with, then he is playing the old game of conquest and longing for a lost empire of the past. And in that sense, how is he going to win this in the long term, what's the gain? Is he going to occupy a hostile Ukraine indefinitely to rebuild his empire? Is he just going to blow the place up and retreat back to the east and Crimea? Maybe he can conquer Ukraine in the coming months, but what can he actually hold in the long term, and what will he try? And how does he do that without bleeding himself dry to get anything more than he already had before all this? Who will support him beyond those who are already his puppets (see Belarus), and maybe some other revanchists like China? China will be the senior partner in that relationship, and they will extract maximum gain at Russia's expense, as they plainly have no interest in rebuilding the Russian empire, only their own.
The only hope I can see Putin having is Ukraine folding without much of a fight, then he gets to dictate some terms. But trying to rebuild the empire, which really seems to be his intent, seems like a giant pipe dream, and doomed to fail sooner or later. Maybe if Putin had a stooge like Trump in there to blow up NATO before Russia went in he could have gotten quite a bit for himself without having to have a real, brutal war, but that's not the case.
I'll stand by what I said earlier, you'd have to be nuts to think this is in Russia's interests, it's an act that reeks more of desperation than strength. Any gain that isn't fleeting will have to be paid for dearly in blood and treasure.
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You actually genuinely believe that Russia is in it for the territorial grab. Against all odds, against all evidence, that is what you came out with.
Odds? Odds are great, because Russia historically grabbed territory. Evidence? Evidence is great, because Russia's whole pretext is just that — wholly based on lies. Who cares if NATO, the UN, the EU, or any other body is pressed right up against Russia? It's only relevant if a) you expect them to invade Russia, which they would never do because there's nothing there worth invading for, or b) if you're Russia and you have expansionist plans, because that expansion is inconvenient for you.
Literally eve
Re:Surprised he even bothers (Score:5, Insightful)
That Ukraine isn't run by Nazi's... Obviously not.
Then why is Putin claiming a primary goal of his invasion is denazification [haaretz.com].
Like I said, he might as well be saying he'll defeat the Martians.
That NATO is not perceived as a threat by Russia. What are you smoking? For HUNDREDS of years, the West understood ideas like security dilemmas, and the need for buffer states. Somehow, after the cold war, all these ideas were thrown out the window, and realist theories, whether structural, defensive, classic, offensive, etc. were all thrown out the window, and replaced by the idea that the US could somehow make the whole world in its image, as if it was God.
It's not the Cold War, NATO is a defensive alliance. The reason former bloc countries want in is so they can be defended from Russia.
Not being allowed to invade another country isn't a valid pretext for feeling threatened.
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Does anyone actually believe that Ukraine is run by Nazis? That NATO is somehow a threat to Russia? That the separatists begged for intervention?
All of these are facts, not opinions.
Well, I'll grant you're half-right in the sense that they're wrong facts.
That right-wing extremists and fascists were involved heavily in the overthrow of the past and installation of the current Ukraine government is well documented, even in western media. Their exact role today is debatable, but they didn't exactly vanish into nothing.
Partially involved, but the whole "Nazi" thing comes from the fact that when the Nazi's invaded Ukraine they kicked out the Russians who had just killed several million Ukrainians by starvation [wikipedia.org]. So they're understandably more sympathetic to the Nazi symbols.
That being said that's just a tiny proportion of the militias who like the symbols and the ideology itself is non-existent. I mean their President is literally Jewish.
And how is an
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Appropriate time to re-read Use of Weapons (Score:2)
I've gotten through the beginning, with the shelling of the mansion, and the search for bottles of booze. Iain M. Banks has never disappointed me.
wat (Score:3)
What's with the deleted posts
But China is the real danger (Score:2)
Re: But China is the real danger (Score:2)
Itâ(TM)s only a matter of time, a short time, before China moves to uh .. Anschluss.. Taiwan.
Neither Russia nor China are the threat. (Score:5, Insightful)
The Russian, Chinese (and British) governments are run by people who are seriously mentally ill and are a real and immediate danger to themselves and others. Nations only exist because people think they do, there are no meaningful borders and cultures on the two sides of any supposed border will always form a continuum.
This doesn't mean that Russia hasn't invaded Ukraine, it has. It has done so in violation of the laws of war, as agreed and signed up to by Russia. Mind you, no country has ever followed these laws as far as I can tell. They supposedly exist to ensure that death and destruction are controlled and limited to the actual antagonists, but the reality is that militaries rely on "shock and awe" - terror - to achieve the least harm to themselves, and that means the greatest possible destruction of those not involved in ways that inspire fear.
There are, then, five actual threats:-
1. A complete lack of global action to deal with mental health issues
2. A tendency to put people with severe mental health issues, including sociopathic tendencies, in charge
3. A solid belief that war is in any way a useful way to settle differences between countries
4. A solid belief in the myth of countries
5. A desire to fight those wars somewhere discrete, so allowing the delusion that war is peace
1 and 2 won't be fixed until the macho "alpha male" myth and culture are dead, buried, with a stake through the heart and enough reinforced concrete above them to ensure that they cannot return as zombies.
3, 4 and 5 need to be dealt with together and will require society to progress rather than regress. Most societies today are a good 100-200 years behind the science and technology they're responsible for controlling. That will require a massive kick forward, only because politics is toxic and nobody is doing any worthwhile social experiments, nobody knows what "forward" would look like beyond a few slightly less archaic notions by Sanders that are still well behind where we'd need to be. Besides which, Sanders isn't popular enough to not only win the Presidency but also to rally the nation around giving the Democrats a supermajority in both Houses, and that would still only be one country out of several hundred.
So really, there's not the slightest chance of any progress being made on those last three, not as long as violence is seen as a solution rather than a major problem. Or as the Finnish God of Keyboards put it: Death is the winner in any war. Nothing noble in dying for your religion, or your country, for ideology, for faith.
I've called it. (Score:2)
I said it in an earlier article that the cyber attack yesterday was the diversion tactic before the invasion, and here we are now...
Does anyone read history? (Score:2)
Destroy Nord Stream 2 (Score:5, Interesting)
Now that Russia has declared war I would suggest this is time to destroy the new natural gas pipelines from Russia before they carry any fuel. Once that flow starts it will be far more difficult to stop later.
As I recall Nord Stream 2 is complete but it's awaiting certification. Normally this would be a technical matter but it became a political matter once Russia started to build up military forces around Ukraine. Russia is a terrorist state funded by oil and gas, like many other nations in Asia. Cut off their funding. Don't just hold up certification on the pipelines, destroy the pipelines. As long as that pipeline exists it is a signal that Europe is willing to negotiate with terrorists. Once that pipeline is gone move on to the other pipes and destroy them too.
European nations have been talking big about moving on from fossil fuels anyway so why not move up the schedule on that? The politicians know they can't go without fossil fuels while also going without nuclear power, and they are still fighting over nuclear power because it doesn't poll well. I would think funding terrorists that declared war on a neighboring nation doesn't poll well either.
You want to know how someone like Trump got to be POTUS? This is an example how that happens. What is going to happen in the next election? If this invasion won't get Trump elected in the next election then it's going to be someone that is a younger near carbon copy. A "mini-me"? You might not get Dr. Evil, you'll just get his one quarter scale clone instead.
Nord Stream 2 will be decommissioned anyway. (Score:5, Insightful)
Given the situation today it is quite very likely that NS2 will never see operations. Germanys economy can shrug off the 5 billion it costed and kick solar and wind into overdrive, as they are doing as we speak. Yeah, gas prices will go up, but Germans are diciplined, if push comes to shove we'll have a few colder winters and get movin' with the overdue eco-turnaround. Besides, the US is super-eager to sell their LPG to Germany and have already upped their capacities for sea transport. Which goes to show that there are not just russian interests at stake here.
Minister Habeck said it was a dumb idea to build NS2 in the first place and I completely agree. It was one signature from him that cancelled NS2 certification, he was just waiting in the wings for the right moment to do that. He want's to diversify and "renewably" German (and European) energy, and has strict plans to catch up on time lost already. He is green and he is smart and if the Germans aren't total dimwitts (I sure do effing hope so) they'll get moving and finally sieze the chance and get a full blown eco-turnaround going.
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Now that Russia has declared war I would suggest this is time to destroy the new natural gas pipelines from Russia before they carry any fuel.
There's nothing to destroy. The project's approval was pulled 2 days ago. Kind of hard to pump gas down a pipeline when the country receiving it will not take it from you.
As long as that pipeline exists it is a signal that Europe is willing to negotiate with terrorists.
A terrorist is only a terrorist while they terrorise. Europe is willing to negotiate with a peaceful country and it makes zero sense to destroy infrastructure.
You may be able to speak all high and mighty from behind your armchair at the other side of the world. In the mean time my energy contract expires next week and I will go from paying
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The Biden administration has never been fine with NordStream 2. They reluctantly tolerated it because of relations with Germany, but always pushed to get it cancelled - in as far as you can cancel a project that's 99.999% done.
A key difference with Keystone XL is that of direct involvement. The US can always block or unblock Keystone XL, irrespective of the incumbent administration, but it can only comment on and/or generate pressure about NordStream 2. Just as Germany cannot stop Keystone XL and you woul
So corporations of the world. (Score:2)
Cut Russia off (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean everything. Close all borders and pipelines. Confiscate all properties and financial assets held by Russian nationals. Stop all transactions with Russia and with Russian businesses and individuals. I don't care how much Putin threatens to raise the prices of gas and oil. We're not buying from him anymore. Isolate Russia completely. Same for Belarus. Sanction everybody who keeps doing business with Russia or Belarus. Yes, China, I'm looking at you.
Re: What about that (Score:2)
https://youtu.be/C62PCf8rb00 [youtu.be]
Re:What about that (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What about that (Score:4, Informative)
Russia was never refused entry into NATO, it just didn't feel it should have to go through the formal application process which is a requirement because joining NATO isn't just about signing a dotted line, it's about making sure your military can even integrate (and that involves on things like laws of war, as well as technical integration).
But just like all of Russia's modernisation, it was also well and truly kiboshed when Putin came to power and undid everything Yeltsin had done to try and make Russia a successful modern state, rather than keeping it stuck perpetually in the past fighting with it's neighbours like Putin.
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Re:THIRD WORLD WAR (Score:5, Insightful)
Nope, no one will join this conflict with their military. There will be lots of talking, some sanctions, but on the actual combat front Ukraine will be left alone.
This doesn't mean there will be no war later on - if Putin decides to push further there are pretty much only NATO countries left around to the west (except Finland and Sweden). If he decides to for example push baltic states (they have large russian minorities) we may get an actual conflict.
Re:Where is the United Nations? (Score:5, Interesting)
UN always was and always will be a talking forum. It has no real power whatsoever. Any member of security council can fully ignore it.
You cannot unilaterally send "blue helmets" - for them to be considered such they need to be recognized as neutral by both sides. If Russia doesn't recognize them and you send them anyway then it just means you are joining the conflict militarily with all the results you would get from doing it normally.
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Did UN ever helped to really stop the conflict?
Civilzed world should act and send blue helmets.
I dont care if Russsia and China vote against it.Veto makes this institution completeley superficial. Now we see new tyrant rised to power for last 20 years ,and what do you think will he stop ? NO. What is the world doing? NOTHING.
The veto power ensures that the UN will not go the way of The League of Nations. It is possibly the most important mechanism for keeping the UN relevant.
And no, even though this is terrible for Ukraine our response should be measured to impose costs on Russia without escalating the conflict beyond Ukraine (just as EU and USA are doing right now). The reason is simple: Nuclear weapons and the risk of nuclear war. In the current conflict hundreds of thousands may die. But in the event of a nuclear war between
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We don't know how lucky we are that Trump didn't win a 2nd term. I think this was Putin's plan all along. Keep Trump in the seat to wreck chaos in NATO until Putin's ready to invade Ukraine.
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We don't know how lucky we are that Trump didn't win a 2nd term. I think this was Putin's plan all along. Keep Trump in the seat to wreck chaos in NATO until Putin's ready to invade Ukraine.
Lol the cognitive dissonance must really hurt, huh?
Yes, Trump really was an evil mastermind, getting Putin to attack Ukraine both before he was president and after, lol!
It couldn't be that Putin just sees Dem presidents as weak and predictable.
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You talk to me about cognitive dissonance?
Trump has expressed his admiration for Putin on numerous occasions. The latest being just yesterday:
https://news.sky.com/story/ukr... [sky.com]
Trump calls Putin a "friend" and has on numerous occasions cast doubt on NATO and if it is even required. In short, Trump was just Putin's lapdog and a useful idiot in Putin's war against western democracy.
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Well they didn't have the keys to make them work and gave them up in the negotiations of independence. Now they said they want to develop nukes again. Russia says no.