Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[Maladict]

That memorial should be made into a urinal.

It often serves that purpose for people in the vicinity at night. I wonder if it will continue to be preserved. Preservation of this and similar memorials for the victors of WW2 were part of the 1955 treaty that restored full sovereignty to Austria. Maybe a good time to re-evaluate.

It could be moved to a much less prominent spot, at least.

[Syt]

BILD asking the important questions.



War in Ukraine - Can I still board a plane without worrying?

[Syt]

That memorial should be made into a urinal.

It often serves that purpose for people in the vicinity at night. I wonder if it will continue to be preserved. Preservation of this and similar memorials for the victors of WW2 were part of the 1955 treaty that restored full sovereignty to Austria. Maybe a good time to re-evaluate.

It could be moved to a much less prominent spot, at least.

Agreed but, not sure anyone else would want it in their neighborhood. Removing it, and te-dedicating the place to Ukraine, or the victims of Soviet/Russian oppression would be nice.

[celedhring]

I remember a bunch of Soviet-era memorials still in place in the Czech Republic when I did an Erasmus in 1999.

[Syt]

From Guardian's ticker:

Ukraine's port city of Mariupol is under heavy fire with reports of hundreds of explosions, a diplomatic source told Reuters.

More to follow.

[Syt]

I remember a bunch of Soviet-era memorials still in place in the Czech Republic when I did an Erasmus in 1999.

There's also a Russian section on the Vienna main cemetery, for soldiers who died after the end of the war. It's been years I was there, but I recall the section was pretty badly maintained.

[Legbiter]

So far this has been a very successful invasion. The Ukrainians are doing about as well as you'd expect being outclassed, outmanned and outgunned. Enormous respect for their bravery. This is no small Schleswig-Holstein war, the Russians will completely own Ukraine after major fighting ceases.

[garbon]

That memorial should be made into a urinal.

It often serves that purpose for people in the vicinity at night. I wonder if it will continue to be preserved. Preservation of this and similar memorials for the victors of WW2 were part of the 1955 treaty that restored full sovereignty to Austria. Maybe a good time to re-evaluate.

It could be moved to a much less prominent spot, at least.

Agreed but, not sure anyone else would want it in their neighborhood. Removing it, and te-dedicating the place to Ukraine, or the victims of Soviet/Russian oppression would be nice.

That's where I waited in rain before we had dinner.

[OttoVonBismarck]

So far this has been a very successful invasion. The Ukrainians are doing about as well as you'd expect being outclassed, outmanned and outgunned. Enormous respect for their bravery. This is no small Schleswig-Holstein war, the Russians will completely own Ukraine after major fighting ceases.

I don't think it was ever in doubt that Russia could fully occupy Ukraine and get rid of its standing army. The question has always been would Putin risk it given that it could turn into a literally endless insurgency war. Little difference really from how quickly the U.S. had completely pacified the Iraqi Army and had all the territory formally occupied. Maybe the Ukrainians are soft and go into their homes and don't resist--but that isn't what the Iraqis or Afghans did.

[Threviel]

So far this has been a very successful invasion. The Ukrainians are doing about as well as you'd expect being outclassed, outmanned and outgunned. Enormous respect for their bravery. This is no small Schleswig-Holstein war, the Russians will completely own Ukraine after major fighting ceases.

Yeah, unlike the Schleswig-Holstein war where the danes owned the Prussians.

[OttoVonBismarck]

My guess is we get a Russian backed puppet regime and a significant draw back as soon as possible of regular Russian military, replaced with the sort of "irregular" quasi-official troops that had been fighting in the separatist regions, under nominal control of the Ukrainian puppet. You'll then have Russia trying to fulfill a sort of America-in-Afghanistan sort of role where we kept saying the locals were handling the fighting, but we kept having to actually step in and do the real fighting. That is definitely more beneficial to Putin than a large scale and permanent Russian occupation, but the feasibility of it is directly correlated to how passive the Ukrainians are once their regular military is stack wiped off the field. Russia can't do its quasi-disengagement if there's a lot of Ukrainian insurgent resistance or we just end back where we started when the last Russian puppet got ran out of the country.

[Syt]

Former Austrian foreign minister Kneissl (independent, but very close to FPÖ), now living in Avignon as (per her claims) she's "practically banned from working in Austria" is giving interviews on RT these days.  She considers recognition of the breakaway republics as nothing unusual, as such things happened all the times during the 90s when Europe's borders were redrawn. She also says that Putin has 25 years of disappointment in the West.
Here's Kneissl finishing a dance with Putin at her wedding 2018:



Christoph Leitl (ÖVP), enterpreneur and former chariman of the Austrian Chamber of Commerce 2000-2018, calls Putin a brilliant political chess players who is good for his word if you strike an agreement with him. (He uses the word "Handschlagqualität", which means you trust someone so much that if you shake hands on a deal with him, they'll honor it, even without written agreement.) But if he feels not being taken seriously than he can get angry and lash out. And if Russia can't been made to feel safe there can never be peace in Ukraine or Europe.

Johann Gudenus, self declared russophile and former right hand man of ex-FPÖ leader Strache, has said that NATO (who he calls a Cold War Nostalgia Club) were the real warmongers.

The recently elected communist mayor of Graz who previously called on all parties to stand down their military and return to negotiations has firmly condemned Russian aggression, and that Putin's threats and attempts at intimidation are entirely unacceptable.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Man this Biden speech is rough, Biden is one of the worst public speakers of this era.

[Syt]

Man this Biden speech is rough, Biden is one of the worst public speakers of this era.

He sounds like me on Zoom discussions.

[The Minsky Moment]

Perhaps the endgame is to install a puppet regime just for long enough to effect recognition of breaking off big chunks of the east and the southern regions under Crimea.  It's hard to conceive how a full scale occupation of the entire country could stick.