Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[grumbler]

right, because slaughtering a duck by repeatedly hitting it to a pillar while your friend is filming it to simulate cruel and inhumane behavior at a slaughterhouse is totally acceptable.

Just as is repeatedly hooking a seal to maintain him on the ice while he bleeds to death for an hour while you film your documentary denouncing the cruelty of seal hunting is a justifiable act.  All for a good cause, after all.

And never, ever has any eco-terrorist blow up a pipeline.  Never.  Oil companies blow them up themselves to accuse to peaceful protesters of mischievous acts.

    You present no evidence that the activities you are describing (which I've never heard of nor, seemingly, has the internet) happen regularly, which is your claim.

In fact, I can't even find evidence that eco-terrorists ever engaged in more than token/demonstration pipeline bombings.  When did they even irregularly "blow up" a pipeline?

[PJL]

Or to put it another way, it's a variant of the I'm not a racist but... argument that many prejudisitc people trott out. Anything said before the but is irrelevant.

[Admiral Yi]

How do they decide who will wear the blue tie and who will wear the red?

[grumbler]

If missiles are in the air I won't be thinking of you at all. Sorry

Please do as he says.  If the use of the missiles is tied to Dorsey being right about something, the missiles will never get fired.

[Tamas]

After seeing this speech which was hard to distinguish from any random far right East European youtuber's, it has occurred to me: the annexation probably have nothing to do with setting up a nuclear play, not even to set up any escalation the mobilisation hasn't already set up. No, it is entirely for internal PR purposes.

Probably the military situation for Russia is as dire as it looks, they had no choice but to give up or mobilise.

But clearly they had serious doubts about public opinion otherwise they would have called it a war sooner (2hich they still don't do). So, probably the thought occurred that the peasants will better stomach fighting on Russian than Ukrainian ground.

The worn out grim faces in the audience also tell me this is a desperation play.

[OttoVonBismarck]

The nuclear threat was never that serious because Ukraine has been hitting targets in Russia proper (not Crimea, not Donetsk, Russia) intermittently throughout the war, and has hit Crimea a number of times. The idea that Russian territory was a magic thing that was going to cause Putin to counter-nuke doesn't line up with the actual reality we've seen.

[grumbler]

Dorsey- I agree with this analysis of Putin's speech: https://twitter.com/KonstantinKisin/status/1575853684852150272?t=gKGa9JOFrCtbq2iOftdVvA&s=19

This is not about Ukraine. This is about Putin's play to tear down the West. He says so himself.

I don't think that this is true.  I think that this isn't about Ukraine, but it is all about Putin.  He knows that there is no hegemon controlling and plundering Russia, but he believes that the Russian people will tolerate his mafia running things if the Russian people believe, as he does, that only having a capo de tutti capo can allow the Russian mafia to prevent the pillaging of the country by the "them" mafia.  The Ukrainian invasion isn't about stopping the west, it is about restoring the original Russian mafia empire.  It's about Putin being promoted from President to Tsar. 

The West, for Putin, is far to convenient to be trivially "destroyed."  Putin will do all he can to make sure that the Russian people can't get a flashlight so that they can look under their beds themselves; he will play the hero and chase away the boogiemen personally. 

So, yeah, he certainly sounds like an unhinged lunatic, but that plays well in Fascist countries like pre-WW2 Italy and Germany, and Putinist Russia.

[Grey Fox]

Putin made a rousing Nazi speech to an unenthusiastic audience. I don't see why we suddenly need to crumble in fear.

What's he going to do next? Make another mean speech?

He's going to use nukes? THIS time he means it, compared to the other fifty times he's smarmily threatened the world with nuclear war?

Empty bluster. Stay the course.

Jacob, I think our posture has generally been too aggressive in Ukraine...the problem with my perspective is that nuclear war is a low probability event with high consequences so while the risk may be worth sacrifice to avoid it is still unlikely to materialize. Also in this case, should the dire consequences come to pass, we are likely to be killed which eliminates any possibility of gloating.

Give me this comfort: will you assure me that as the missiles are in the air, before we are engulfed by nuclear fire, you will take a moment to acknowledge, "AR was right after all."

Too aggressive? It's not aggressive enough. It's a once in a life time generational chance to end the Russian threat for good and the window to do it is very short until Putin's Tucker & Trump duo takes over the narrative and finish the job of 2016.

[Jacob]

I don't think that this is true.  I think that this isn't about Ukraine, but it is all about Putin.  He knows that there is no hegemon controlling and plundering Russia, but he believes that the Russian people will tolerate his mafia running things if the Russian people believe, as he does, that only having a capo de tutti capo can allow the Russian mafia to prevent the pillaging of the country by the "them" mafia.  The Ukrainian invasion isn't about stopping the west, it is about restoring the original Russian mafia empire.  It's about Putin being promoted from President to Tsar. 

The West, for Putin, is far to convenient to be trivially "destroyed."  Putin will do all he can to make sure that the Russian people can't get a flashlight so that they can look under their beds themselves; he will play the hero and chase away the boogiemen personally. 

So, yeah, he certainly sounds like an unhinged lunatic, but that plays well in Fascist countries like pre-WW2 Italy and Germany, and Putinist Russia.

Hmmm... maybe

It's definitely a credible hypothesis. I guess the question is to what degree Putin has come to believe in his own rhetoric (or not). I'm not sure what evidence we can look for to tell in either direction.

[Josquius]

After seeing this speech which was hard to distinguish from any random far right East European youtuber's, it has occurred to me: the annexation probably have nothing to do with setting up a nuclear play, not even to set up any escalation the mobilisation hasn't already set up. No, it is entirely for internal PR purposes.

Probably the military situation for Russia is as dire as it looks, they had no choice but to give up or mobilise.

But clearly they had serious doubts about public opinion otherwise they would have called it a war sooner (2hich they still don't do). So, probably the thought occurred that the peasants will better stomach fighting on Russian than Ukrainian ground.

The worn out grim faces in the audience also tell me this is a desperation play.

Not just about will they stomach it. I have seen it claimed the true reason for this is so there's absolutely zero possible (Russian) legal challenge for conscripts sent to the front-they're legally not meant to be used outside Russia.

[Berkut]

If missiles are in the air I won't be thinking of you at all. Sorry

Please do as he says.  If the use of the missiles is tied to Dorsey being right about something, the missiles will never get fired.

Even if missiles were in the air, he will still be wrong. Russia does not have thousands and thousands of missiles.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Maybe, while we're at it, we could replace Russia with Ukraine on the Security Council. Kievan Rus is the real Rus :p

-------

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsR_CQeMuHA&ab_channel=ReportingfromUkraine

it's the shortest overview I've seen so far of today's changes.

[Josquius]

If missiles are in the air I won't be thinking of you at all. Sorry

Please do as he says.  If the use of the missiles is tied to Dorsey being right about something, the missiles will never get fired.

Even if missiles were in the air, he will still be wrong. Russia does not have thousands and thousands of missiles.

Where'd you get this?

Given the state of their normal military it wouldn't be such a shock for their nukes to be similarly paper... But I am not so confident even if much of it is a Soviet relic.

[Grey Fox]

If missiles are in the air I won't be thinking of you at all. Sorry

Please do as he says.  If the use of the missiles is tied to Dorsey being right about something, the missiles will never get fired.

Even if missiles were in the air, he will still be wrong. Russia does not have thousands and thousands of missiles.

Where'd you get this?

Given the state of their normal military it wouldn't be such a shock for their nukes to be similarly paper... But I am not so confident even if much of it is a Soviet relic.

As Grumbler said, if they are not lying, they have 513 strategic missiles.

[alfred russel]

If missiles are in the air I won't be thinking of you at all. Sorry

Please do as he says.  If the use of the missiles is tied to Dorsey being right about something, the missiles will never get fired.

Even if missiles were in the air, he will still be wrong. Russia does not have thousands and thousands of missiles.

Where'd you get this?

Given the state of their normal military it wouldn't be such a shock for their nukes to be similarly paper... But I am not so confident even if much of it is a Soviet relic.

As Grumbler said, if they are not lying, they have 513 strategic missiles.

I never said anything about strategic missiles...maybe some of those are to be deployed by bombers or not mounted on stand alone missiles...but it seems russia is bumping up against 6k nuclear warheads. per reuters:

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/what-is-chain-command-potential-russian-nuclear-strikes-2022-03-02/

WHAT NUCLEAR CAPABILITIES DOES RUSSIA HAVE?
The Federation of American Scientists estimates that Russia has 5,977 nuclear warheads, more than any other country. Of these, 1,588 are deployed and ready for use. Its missiles can be fired from the land, by submarines and by airplanes. Putin oversaw a coordinated test of Russia's nuclear forces on Feb. 19 shortly before ordering troops into Ukraine. read more