Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[Crazy_Ivan80]

The thing is that if Russia is allowed to win and take territory from Ukraine it will show that wars of aggression is a strategy that can be gotten away with. That's a can of worms that I don't think the west will stomach.

Reportedly the Bosnian Serbs were ready to declare independence once Ukraine fell...

If Ukraine had fallen in february or early march I think we'd be looking at a Chinese invasion of Taiwan by now. Or at least this year

[Sheilbh]

The thing is that if Russia is allowed to win and take territory from Ukraine it will show that wars of aggression is a strategy that can be gotten away with. That's a can of worms that I don't think the west will stomach.

I think there is a division in Europe that's emerging and I think getting wider between those who see this as something that is happening to Ukraine and those who see it as happening to "us" or to Europe.

[Richard Hakluyt]

I'm pretty intransigent about not letting Russia win...if they did then who would be next?

The USSR didn't even relax when their frontier was on the Elbe.

[Jacob]

I'm pretty intransigent about not letting Russia win...if they did then who would be next?

The USSR didn't even relax when their frontier was on the Elbe.

Yup.

I admit I'm losing some focus on Ukraine. I'm not reading all the news all the time or following every little development. But I remain 100% committed to supporting Ukraine, to spending money to help Ukraine beat Russia, and to cope with the consequences of doing so.

Because this is not a thing that's going to go away if we just relent a little and give an inch.

[The Larch]

edit (2): Seems Lithuania is starting to block transit of stuff to Kaliningrad.

Apparently it's only items subject to EU sanctions - which is about 50% of all rail shipments to Kaliningrad.

And Russia doesn't seem to be taking it well...

Russia threatens 'serious consequences' as Lithuania blocks rail goods
Row escalates over Vilnius's refusal to allow steel and iron ore to cross Russian exclave of Kaliningrad

The head of the Kremlin's security council has threatened the "population of Lithuania" in an escalation of the row over Lithuanian railway's refusal to allow some goods to cross to the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad.

After a meeting in the region, which is wedged between Lithuania and Poland, 800 miles from Moscow, Nikolai Patrushev, a close ally to Vladimir Putin, upped the rhetoric by threatening "serious consequences".

"Russia will certainly respond to such hostile actions," Patrushev said. "Appropriate measures ... will be taken in the near future ... Their consequences will have a serious negative impact on the population of Lithuania."

Patrushev did not specify how Russia would retaliate, merely saying it would be "interagency". Lithuania has already blocked Russian energy imports, leaving few other options for the Kremlin.

At the weekend, Lithuanian state railway had told Russian clients it could no longer transport steel or iron ore across EU territory to Kaliningrad, on the Baltic sea.

Goods banned from entering the EU under sanctions introduced after Putin's invasion of Ukraine include Russian coal, metals, construction materials and advanced technology. Just less than half of the goods that cross Lithuania in about 100 train journeys every month fall under EU sanctions, although there are different dates for them coming into force.

A ban on oil will not be enforced until December as part of a compromise among the 27 EU member states.

The railways announcement prompted some panic shopping in Kaliningrad and an angry response from Moscow, where officials accused Lithuania of breaching transit agreements struck in 2004.

The European Commission has said Lithuania was acting legally, although the EU's head of foreign policy, Josep Borrell, said on Monday that he would "double-check", in what appeared to be an attempt to take the sting out of the row.

Patrushev had been speaking after a meeting in Kaliningrad, while earlier on Tuesday Russia's foreign ministry summoned the EU ambassador to Moscow, Markus Ederer, over the "anti-Russian restrictions".

"The inadmissibility of such actions, which violate the relevant legal and political obligations of the European Union and lead to an escalation of tensions, was pointed out," the ministry said in a statement.

Speaking shortly after the meeting, Ederer said he had called on the Russian government to "remain calm" and "resolve this issue diplomatically", the Russian news agency Tass reported.

Kaliningrad, which has a population of about 500,000, is the headquarters for Russian's Baltic fleet and hosts some of its most powerful armaments, including hypersonic missiles. It was captured from Nazi Germany by the Red Army in April 1945 and ceded to the Soviet Union at the end of the war.

The region is strategically important to Russia. Nato has long identified a 50-mile strip of Polish and Lithuanian borderland, known as the Suwalki Gap, that lies between Russian Kaliningrad in the west and Kremlin-friendly Belarus to the east as a possible Putin target in the event of conflict.

Such a move could cut off Lithuania and Latvia in the north from the rest of the EU.

[Josquius]

The thing is that if Russia is allowed to win and take territory from Ukraine it will show that wars of aggression is a strategy that can be gotten away with. That's a can of worms that I don't think the west will stomach.

To some extent. Maybe. But if they completely destroy their economy and forever destroy their power, leading to the collapse of the government, as a result?

I mean China wants Taiwan. But that much?

[Josephus]

Agreed. All the outcomes from here out are various flavors of abject failure on the part of Russia and Putin.

I think I'm pretty bullish on Ukraine, but it's still possible for Russia to win this war.

Putting aside the possibility of a Ukrainian collapse, but it goes something like this:  as western nations grow exhausted (or bored) of the war supplies to Ukraine start to slow up.  The Zelenskyy government decides to make peace, losing the western quarter of the nation.  Given sky-high energy prices western nations quickly lift most sanctions on Russia now that the war is over.  Ukrainian accession to the EU gets bogged down.  Other ex-soviet states quickly fall even more deeply into Russia's orbit.  Given the lack of sanctions, and aforementioned sky-high energy prices, Russia rebuilds its military and prestige.

That's not far off from what I said. I hope it does not happen, but I think what you said here is likely.

[Threviel]

What surprises me in all of this is the weak western response when it comes to production. Total western production peacetime level of anything, except perhaps small arms ammunition, is not enough to supply Ukraine.

They need millions of artillery rounds and we can produce at best a few hundred thousand. In about day 3 of the war it was obvious that this was going to be a long and hard war, production of everything should have been maximised from about that point on.

Now it's obvious that this a war that Ukraine needs to win and they will need new stuff to do it. 3 second hand Panzerhaubitze 2000 is nice, the Caesars even nicer. They need hundreds of them together with all the logistics. We need to start producing new stuff.

Sweden for example has the Archer artillery system, akin to Caesar, but of course better. We need to get that factory rolling and as far as I know nothing has happened yet.

Same with air planes, get them training on western plane and give them some Tornadoes or something, there are lots of them around to sprinkle on Ukraine.

And I hope our politicians understand that this is a war that cannot be allowed to be lost, be they leftists or rightists. Scholz at least understands, since he is very good at not giving Ukraine stuff. Nordic countries understand since every Nordic country is shipping stuff, likewise France and Britain. They also need to understand that hand-me downs, while good enough, are far too few and we need Ukraine to win the numbers game.

[Zanza]

Noah Barkin 🇺🇦
@noahbarkin
Summing up Jens Plötner @dgapev:
- Don't put RU & CN in one basket. Aim is to reduce rivalry w/CN
- Very worried about next US election
- Media should focus more on future ties w/RU, less on tank deliveries
- No EU membership discount for UKR just because it was attacked

It's old SPD thinking persisting about Russia and doubling down on that approach to China too

Foreign and security policy between the pacifist left wing - which also paradoxically has quite a few (former?) Russophiles - and the more moderate leadership of the SPD is extremely controversial right now and will take a long time to resolve. It will be very painful for the party, limit Scholz' political options and damage German credibility.

However, here is the party co-chairman:

Germany needs to "normalise" its relationship with the military and learn to take a leadership role in Europe after "almost 80 years of restraint", the co-leader of the governing Social Democratic party (SPD) has said.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/21/germany-must-normalise-relationship-with-military-says-spd-co-leader

Scholz in his speech before parliament today said that "a partnership with Russia is unthinkable for the time being", basically saying that it would take regime change in Russia.

[alfred russel]

The thing is that if Russia is allowed to win and take territory from Ukraine it will show that wars of aggression is a strategy that can be gotten away with. That's a can of worms that I don't think the west will stomach.

I keep going back to Dr. Strangelove. "Why would you build a doomsday device and not tell anyone? It defeats the whole purpose." It is coherent to say that we will basically do whatever it takes to stop any aggressor from gaining territory, but if that is our position we should have decided and communicated that long before Russia invaded Ukraine.

[Zanza]

@Threviel:
Even maintaining production levels in the civilian automotive industry is currently not feasible due to supply chain issues.

And that's companies like e.g. Volkswagen who are masters of global supply chain, have established supplier networks and know how to make production more efficient.

Companies like Rheinmetall or KMW in Germany are tiny in comparison and lack comparable capabilities, expertise or for that matter capital, although I guess the latter could be fixed easily.

Ramping up military production - even if it was tried - would take a lot of effort and time. You would probably need to ask current civilian companies to take over the production as the military equipment makers have no background in mass production. 

[Zanza]

I also doubt that any Western military equipment is engineered for mass production. So you would first need to come up with products that can even be mass manufactured.

[Barrister]

I hope to God that the US and the west have been taking steps for a couple of months now to ramp up production at least of ammo and missiles, if not more sophisticated heavy equipment, with an eye to restocking after what we've given to Ukraine (or hopefully to keep giving more to Ukraine)...

[The Larch]

Do Ukrainian small arms even use the same calibers as NATO countries? Are the munitions standards even compatible? There's a reason why every former Warsaw pact country has given Ukraine the lion's share of their stockpiles.

[Barrister]

Do Ukrainian small arms even use the same calibers as NATO countries? Are the munitions standards even compatible? There's a reason why every former Warsaw pact country has given Ukraine the lion's share of their stockpiles.

No they don't.  Which I'm sure causes no end of problems to Ukrainian supply depots.