Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[celedhring]

It comes from a fairly unreliable news source, but they claim an Ukrainian sailor tried to scuttle a Russian oligarch's (Alexander Mijeev) yacht yesterday in Mallorca's harbor. 

[OttoVonBismarck]

I genuinely think the big mistake of the West, particularly U.S. leadership, has been restraint towards bellicose rhetoric in regard to Putin since 2000. I think Russia needs more open animosity to understand the trigger points--Eisenhower and Kennedy for example weren't at all afraid to threaten war against the Soviets, Kennedy essentially ordered U.S. forces into a scenario to start a shooting war even. The reason I think this 20 year policy has been a mistake is unlike a lot of pundits, I actually think the U.S. would go in for full war with Russia if they invaded a NATO country. The danger is I don't think Russia believes that anymore, and that's a dangerous belief for Russia to have when it isn't true.

[Maladict]

The world's largest aircraft, the one of its kind Antonov An-225, has been destroyed.

[celedhring]

This is apparently the Russian delegation:

Russia's negotiation team:
Head: Prez advisor Vladimir Medinskii
Dep. Minister of Defense Alexander Fomin
Dep. Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrei Rudenko
Chairman of Duma Foreign Affairs committee Leonid Slutskii
Russia's ambassador to Belarus/Contact group rep  Boris Gryzlov

Seems pretty low-level and already seeing analysts claiming this means Russia doesn't intend to carry out any kind of serious talks.

[Solmyr]

This is apparently the Russian delegation:

Russia's negotiation team:
Head: Prez advisor Vladimir Medinskii
Dep. Minister of Defense Alexander Fomin
Dep. Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrei Rudenko
Chairman of Duma Foreign Affairs committee Leonid Slutskii
Russia's ambassador to Belarus/Contact group rep  Boris Gryzlov

Seems pretty low-level and already seeing analysts claiming this means Russia doesn't intend to carry out any kind of serious talks.

Especially Medinsky as head of the delegation is a joke.

[Sheilbh]

I think it was meant to be a junior level talks, no? More a sounding out than anything else.

[The Larch]

Closing the air space between Russia and Kaliningrad would mean certain war for instance.

Both Lithuania and Poland have already closed their airspaces to Russian planes, so that's already happening.

[OttoVonBismarck]

By the way not for nothing, but our (NATO) support for Ukraine is actually a bit at odds with Cold War doctrine. Like it's great on some level that Germany as an example shipped 500 Stinger MANPADs and 1000 AT weapons to Ukraine. But it actually could arguably be considered a belligerent action by Russia. During the Cold War we actually were careful to not just directly hurl weapons to country's Russia was fighting. We would filter them through neutral intermediaries to give some level of plausible deniability. This was important not because the Soviets were unaware, we were funding for example the Mujahedeen, but by moving them through intermediaries we allowed the Russian regime to not have to admit or deal with the loss of face that their Western enemies were directly taking belligerent actions against them without reprisal. The way we are directly giving weapons right into the hands of the Ukrainian military is a much more belligerent act and one that causes a loss of face by the Russian regime because they are now being seen to "allow this" without any response.

[Savonarola]

No matter how much I try, I still can't quite see how Putin thought this was a good idea, win or lose on the battlefield.

Hell, how many discussions have we had in this very forum about the obsolescence of NATO? He just rendered all of them moot with a stroke.

I read an article in The New Statesman which argued that Poutine wants to create a New World Order () with himself on the top and nothing of importance happening without Moscow's say so.  Presumably he saw NATOs failure in Afghanistan and his own victory in Syria as evidence that NATO was weak; that he would easily win in Ukraine; and then the rest of the world would fear him. 

Even if the war had gone off well it's hard to see how that would have worked.  Russia's economy is smaller than Canada's (despite having over three times the population of Canada).  He can't afford to be a super power.

[OttoVonBismarck]

On the flipside--recall Soviet and PRC support for North Vietnam during the Vietnam War was also not done blatantly and in the open, for much the same reasons. It's one thing to arm the enemy of your enemy covertly, it's another to do so openly.

[OttoVonBismarck]

No matter how much I try, I still can't quite see how Putin thought this was a good idea, win or lose on the battlefield.

Hell, how many discussions have we had in this very forum about the obsolescence of NATO? He just rendered all of them moot with a stroke.

I read an article in The New Statesman which argued that Poutine wants to create a New World Order () with himself on the top and nothing of importance happening without Moscow's say so.  Presumably he saw NATOs failure in Afghanistan and his own victory in Syria as evidence that NATO was weak; that he would easily win in Ukraine; and then the rest of the world would fear him. 

Even if the war had gone off well it's hard to see how that would have worked.  Russia's economy is smaller than Canada's (despite having over three times the population of Canada).  He can't afford to be a super power.

The path Russia is on now it's hard to conclude their most likely end state is anything but a junior partner in vassalage to China.

[Legbiter]

Closing the air space between Russia and Kaliningrad would mean certain war for instance.

Both Lithuania and Poland have already closed their airspaces to Russian planes, so that's already happening.

Cutting all airlinks to Kaliningrad would be a major red line for the Russians. They'd consider it besieged and act accordingly. 

[Legbiter]

The path Russia is on now it's hard to conclude their most likely end state is anything but a junior partner in vassalage to China.

Yeah.

[Sheilbh]

Cutting all airlinks to Kaliningrad would be a major red line for the Russians. They'd consider it besieged and act accordingly. 

I think there are points the West should make - so it's clear we understand Russia's red lines. Close airspace - but allow supplies (however transported) to Kaliningrad; no engagement of conventional forces; and cyber but not into core military/nuclear space.

All of those, if it was a NATO country, I'd consider an Article 5 incident - so I think we should be clear that we consider the same for Russia.

[celedhring]

I think Putin is feeling the heat at home, which indeed makes him dangerous.

38m ago
15:10
Russian policed detained over 900 people at anti-war protests in 44 Russian cities on Sunday, independent protest monitoring group OVD-Info said.

That means over 4,000 protestors have been arrested since the invasion, underscoring the Kremlin's crackdown on dissent.

Some of the protests on Sunday tied into the anniversary of Putin-critic Boris Nemtsov's killing seven years ago.

Meanwhile, Moscow has seen lines at ATMs as people respond to western Swift santions.