Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[Legbiter]

Also this didn't work for Saddam when he fired Scuds at Israeli cities in 1991.

[alfred russel]

Assuming Russia isn't totally collapsing and this is a really long term war, there are reasons this could be more useful than Saddam firing rockets into Israel or Hitler into the UK. Folks in Israel and the UK couldn't really leave en masse. But people and economic activity can leave Ukraine with Europe next door. People leaving with their teenagers today mean less soldiers for tomorrow. Civilians who want their families out today results in a smaller workforce which is ultimately needed to support the war effort.

[Legbiter]

Putin is responding to the last couple of days of livid Russian state tv and military bloggers seething and coping over the Kerch bridge disaster. Russian foreign policy and military operations are dictated by the day-to-day mental state of these people it seems.

[Tamas]

Which is kind of telling me that our best semi-realistic hope is chaos and civil war once Putin is removed, because any near-seamless transition of power would be to somebody at least as beholden to the far-right as he is.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Assuming Russia isn't totally collapsing and this is a really long term war, there are reasons this could be more useful than Saddam firing rockets into Israel or Hitler into the UK. Folks in Israel and the UK couldn't really leave en masse. But people and economic activity can leave Ukraine with Europe next door. People leaving with their teenagers today mean less soldiers for tomorrow. Civilians who want their families out today results in a smaller workforce which is ultimately needed to support the war effort.

And yet, we already know that of the initial Ukrainian refugees literally millions have returned. While 20 or so deaths are tragic, and that is the number being reported today from the missile strikes, the Ukrainians have been suffering significant civilian casualties every day of this war.

The point about the British in WW2 is also fairly off point--they lost like 50,000 civilians to German bombing which was almost entirely concentrated in the south east of England (and disproportionately on London itself)...they absolutely had places they could go, no one made you live in London. In that era before the modern quota system on immigration it was also pretty easy to leave the UK for the United States, and I believe in that WW2 era you could actually move from the UK to Canada almost freely--I have a friend who is 2nd generation Canadian whose parents were British people who moved over in the 40s (they did it specifically for a business opportunity, not fleeing the war) and as far as I know they had almost no barriers to packing up and emigrating across the Atlantic.

[Legbiter]

Which is kind of telling me that our best semi-realistic hope is chaos and civil war once Putin is removed, because any near-seamless transition of power would be to somebody at least as beholden to the far-right as he is.

Yeah the most likely scenarios of Russia after the war is either North Korea on steroids, Time of Troubles basket case or North China satrapy.

[Tamas]

It is incredibly evil that civilians are being shelled just so Putin can say back home "look I did a response, see?"

[Sheilbh]

This is like Germany firing V2s at Britain. No real military purpose, just terrorism.

Yeah and, as then, a sign of futility and growing weakness in the military sphere.

[Legbiter]

This twitter account monitors Russian state media for the BBC. Useful for checking out the daily blood sugar level of vatniks. Frequently hilarious in a rather dark sort of way.

[OttoVonBismarck]

There's been a lot of reporting on how negatively this war has affected Russia's position vis-a-vis former vassals in the CSTO, Kyrgzyzstan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan have all been moving away from Russia in various ways. Armenia exposed that the CSTO is a paper tiger when it asked for mutual defense over the attacks from Azerbaijan and the CSTO did nothing, Azerbaijan's behavior is also an indicator that other countries in Central Asia have stopped fearing Russia as it would not have happened otherwise.

If Putin actually finally succeeds in pressuring Lukashenko to get militarily involved he may fuck up one of his last loyal vassalages because I am not sure Lukashenko's regime can easily survive the fallout without massive internal instability, which Russia is no longer well positioned to help deal with.

[alfred russel]

The point about the British in WW2 is also fairly off point--they lost like 50,000 civilians to German bombing which was almost entirely concentrated in the south east of England (and disproportionately on London itself)...they absolutely had places they could go, no one made you live in London. In that era before the modern quota system on immigration it was also pretty easy to leave the UK for the United States, and I believe in that WW2 era you could actually move from the UK to Canada almost freely--I have a friend who is 2nd generation Canadian whose parents were British people who moved over in the 40s (they did it specifically for a business opportunity, not fleeing the war) and as far as I know they had almost no barriers to packing up and emigrating across the Atlantic.

I don't think it was off point...I mean tons of British did leave the London area to your point they didn't need to leave the country.

I don't know the specifics of the ease it was to get on a transatlantic boat to the US or Canada to emigrate during WWII, but I'm confident that it was a lot tougher than getting a train to Warsaw or Paris or wherever if you are in Ukraine today.

[Berkut]

This is like Germany firing V2s at Britain. No real military purpose, just terrorism.

At least the Germans could argue that it was counter-terrorism.

[Berkut]

Which is kind of telling me that our best semi-realistic hope is chaos and civil war once Putin is removed, because any near-seamless transition of power would be to somebody at least as beholden to the far-right as he is.

Yeah the most likely scenarios of Russia after the war is either North Korea on steroids, Time of Troubles basket case or North China satrapy.

I don't know why people keep saying this over and over again, like it is something that is just obviously true.

I think if you replace Putin....who knows? I think it incredibly unlikely you would get anyone as bad for Russia or the world as Putin, just because its so bad right now, nearly anything else is better.

I really kind of hate this thinking - that a terrible situation is just likely to get worse if it changes. 

Chaos has risk for sure, and you don't want chaos to replace something stable. But change to replace something inherently unstable and incredibly dangerous? That should not be feared.

[The Brain]

Which is kind of telling me that our best semi-realistic hope is chaos and civil war once Putin is removed, because any near-seamless transition of power would be to somebody at least as beholden to the far-right as he is.

Yeah the most likely scenarios of Russia after the war is either North Korea on steroids, Time of Troubles basket case or North China satrapy.

I don't know why people keep saying this over and over again, like it is something that is just obviously true.

I think if you replace Putin....who knows? I think it incredibly unlikely you would get anyone as bad for Russia or the world as Putin, just because its so bad right now, nearly anything else is better.

I really kind of hate this thinking - that a terrible situation is just likely to get worse if it changes.

Chaos has risk for sure, and you don't want chaos to replace something stable. But change to replace something inherently unstable and incredibly dangerous? That should not be feared.

I don't think a realistic assessment equals fear.

[Maladict]

This is like Germany firing V2s at Britain. No real military purpose, just terrorism.

At least Germany had the 'excuse' their cities were being obliterated, too.