Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[Richard Hakluyt]

Russia blames Liz Truss for nuclear 'special alert'

Earlier, UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace downplayed the nuclear "special alert" announced by Vladimir Putin, suggesting that the Russian president wanted to distract people from his forces' slower-than-expected progress in the invasion.

Wallace told the BBC: "We will not do anything to escalate in that area, we will not do anything to feed any miscalculation - we take it very, very seriously. But at the moment this is a battle of rhetoric that President Putin is deploying."

Now, the Kremlin has suggested comments from Foreign Secretary Liz Truss were the reason that Russia put its nuclear forces on heightened alert, according to the Russian news agency Interfax.

"There had been statements by various representatives at various levels about possible conflict situations and even collisions and clashes between Nato and the Russian Federation," said Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for Vladimir Putin.

"We consider such statements absolutely unacceptable. I will not name the authors of these statements, although it was the British foreign secretary."

It's not clear which comments by Truss the Russian government objects to, although on Sunday she said she said she would support individuals from the UK joining an international force to fight for Ukraine.

Just came here to post that. I won't name who pre-empted me but it was Syt.

[The Brain]

In terms of memes, I prefer this one

Don't get me wrong, I think it's a nice meme, but if I were to be that guy I would say that waiting to take any action until Putin dies of natural causes may be a fairly passive strategy right now.

[Sheilbh]

What's the rush? Does EU status help the war in some way?

To an extent - it's part of what they're fighting for and it would have a huge morale boosting effect.

If I was a West Balkans country I would be really pissed

Separately I think it is probably worth looking at Serbia's candidacy and accession route given everything going on in their response to this crisis, actions towards Kosovo and Bosnia at the minute?

Now seriously, I could see fast-tracking them to candidate status, but no way they'll be admitted in the middle of a war.

Yeah and I get the frustration at Ukraine needing to do more "homework" but I think there are pretty big and important institutional reforms that are probably necessary.

But fast-tracing to candidate makes sense.

Yeah, that's the key thing. Big difference between being an official candidate and not.
Annoyingly during the brexit ref a lot of people in the UK completely failed to understand quite what candidate (or was it applicant?) status meant. Really fed the bollocks of turkey with its 50 year candidacy being about to join.

I'm not sure what you mean though - Turkey is an official candidate. Practically I don't think it's ever going to happen and at the minute nothing is happening - but just a month or two ago the EU and Turkey had a joint press conference in Ankara re-stating their candidate status. No new chapters are being opened but both the EU and Turkey spoke about committing themselves to working on the current chapters - it struck me at the time as a bit of a farce or a weird ceremony where everyone knows it's not real and has no content but everyone goes through the ceremony anyway (like the Queen opening parlliament maybe?).

Turkey's being helpful in this crisis so I wouldn't do anything now but I wonder if, as with Serbia, there's probably a point in saying at some point "you've backslid on x, y and z so much that you're no longer a candidate"?

Just came here to post that. I won't name who pre-empted me but it was Syt.

I think the line I saw flagged about a risk of a conclict with NATO by Truss was:
"If we don't stop Putin in Ukraine we are going to see others under threat – the Baltics, Poland, Moldova, and it could end up in a conflict with NATO. We do not want to go there."

Which doesn't seem that controversial to me - the Baltics and Poland are in NATO, Article 5 applies and I think we should probably make clear that we won't cross Russia's red lines but we should also be pretty clear about our own.

I think that Le Drian's response to Putin's nuclear threat last week was even stronger (and incredibly French) when he said "Vladimir Putin must also understand that the Atlantic Alliance is a nuclear alliance"

[Syt]

Just came here to post that. I won't name who pre-empted me but it was Syt.

 

[mongers]

[Syt]

And there's Raiffeisen Bank, whose subsidiary, Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) is one of the 13 "system relevant banks" in Russia, with over 130 branches and over 9000 employees. Half their revenue comes from Russia/Ukraine.

Their stock lost 1/3 in value last week, and another 18% this morning. They say they maintain operations in Ukraine as best they can while keeping their employees safe; otherwise they're still analyzing the situation and won't make major comments while things are still developing.

Quick addendum - this bank has had a job ad out now for a while, looking for someone to handle customer complaints with regards to payments - "Fluency in Russian required" 

[Sheilbh]

Oh - footage of Russia using grads and just bombarding Kharkiv, just as the delegates meet for the opening talks.

Apparently some very graphic images which I thankfully haven't seen but it seems that there at least we've reached the frustration at not being able to take a city so just indiscriminatly shelling it stage

[Sheilbh]

Quick addendum - this bank has had a job ad out now for a while, looking for someone to handle customer complaints with regards to payments - "Fluency in Russian required" 

I had a friend who used to work in the Balkans (and bank with them because they are great if you're in that area) who described Raiffeisen as the shadiest business in the West Balkans and that included the President's property development company that kept winning state contracts

[Richard Hakluyt]

Truss has expressed support for anyone volunteering to join the fight in Ukraine :

"Truss told BBC One's Sunday Morning programme that she would "absolutely" back anyone wanting to volunteer to help the Ukrainians fighting for their freedom."

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/feb/28/ben-wallace-distances-himself-from-truss-comments-on-uk-volunteers-for-ukraine

Which, from a Russian perspective, opens up the prospect of several battalions of hard-bitten "volunteers" further buggering up their plans of conquest.

[Sheilbh]

It has already started too - Zelensky announced their "International Legion" this morning. Read an article and apparently there were ten former special forces guys from the US, UK and Germany already signed up and crossing from Poland. They're looking for experienced officers to lead them as well.

I think they might well get a few thousand former fighters/veterans going out there.

[The Brain]

Truss has expressed support for anyone volunteering to join the fight in Ukraine :

"Truss told BBC One's Sunday Morning programme that she would "absolutely" back anyone wanting to volunteer to help the Ukrainians fighting for their freedom."

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/feb/28/ben-wallace-distances-himself-from-truss-comments-on-uk-volunteers-for-ukraine

Which, from a Russian perspective, opens up the prospect of several battalions of hard-bitten "volunteers" further buggering up their plans of conquest.

Yeah. In Russian the concept of a volunteer who actually IS a volunteer simply doesn't exist.

[The Larch]

There's apparently a video of Ukranian gypsies stealing an APC and running away with it, saying that it'll fetch a pretty good price at the scrap yard. 

[mongers]

One problem the Ukrainians don't have is manpower, what with every other adult male in the country wanting to sign up.

I don't see the point of encouraging Brits to go, if they're former military personnel, those captured will be a propaganda gift to Putin, "look the West is sending in undercover soldiers or spies"

And a lot of the others will be impressionable/idealist 18-19 year olds and 20 somethings who with no military experience are likely to come a sad end, que film of British parents regretting their son was allowed to go out to his death etc.

[alfred russel]

Oh - footage of Russia using grads and just bombarding Kharkiv, just as the delegates meet for the opening talks.

Apparently some very graphic images which I thankfully haven't seen but it seems that there at least we've reached the frustration at not being able to take a city so just indiscriminatly shelling it stage

But this is only like 4 days in?

I've seen references to this not being "shock and awe" which is mostly known as a reference to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, but if you remember the actual invasion of Iraq it took almost two weeks to get to Baghdad and there was a ton of angst that things weren't going well for the Allies. It took over two weeks to secure Basra which is in some ways comparable in terms of the stepping off point to Kharkiv. In hindsight the Iraqi military collapsed without meaningful resistance and the invasion was successful and quick--but that was not the perspective at the time. (obviously there were massive problems and ultimate failure in the subsequent occupation)

I believe the russian military is as messed up and underfunded as every other state institution in russia, but in terms of how things are going there is still a massive fog of war. Maybe Russia is frustrated by the lack of military progress, maybe they are on schedule, maybe they are somewhere in between...

[The Brain]

Oh - footage of Russia using grads and just bombarding Kharkiv, just as the delegates meet for the opening talks.

Apparently some very graphic images which I thankfully haven't seen but it seems that there at least we've reached the frustration at not being able to take a city so just indiscriminatly shelling it stage

But this is only like 4 days in?

I've seen references to this not being "shock and awe" which is mostly known as a reference to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, but if you remember the actual invasion of Iraq it took almost two weeks to get to Baghdad and there was a ton of angst that things weren't going well for the Allies. It took over two weeks to secure Basra which is in some ways comparable in terms of the stepping off point to Kharkiv. In hindsight the Iraqi military collapsed without meaningful resistance and the invasion was successful and quick--but that was not the perspective at the time. (obviously there were massive problems and ultimate failure in the subsequent occupation)

I believe the russian military is as messed up and underfunded as every other state institution in russia, but in terms of how things are going there is still a massive fog of war. Maybe Russia is frustrated by the lack of military progress, maybe they are on schedule, maybe they are somewhere in between...

Putin expected the war to be over by now. Expectations matter.