Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-23 and Invasion

[Jacob]

The only thing that's new is those pictures of Putin sat twenty feet away from everyone, even his defence minister and chief of the generral staff. As Ben Judah put it those are pictures of a personal dictatorship not a regime - I'm not sure that doesn't increase the risk for Putin and for everyone else I think.

Yeah... it's not hard to imagine those two men, in leaving the meeting, saying to each other "well that sucked" and exchanging meaningful looks.

Obviously you have to be both careful when overthrowing a dictator, but if said dictator is always at least twenty feet away from everyone else then it becomes a little easier I think.

[Threviel]

The west buried the nazis and the Soviets, right now it shows itself fully capable of burying a two-penny second rate dictator. It seems all we needed was a purpose.

[Syt]

Vitali Klitschko, Kyiv's mayor and former world heavyweight boxing champion, has described the Ukraine capital as "encircled" and said a civilian evacuation would not be possible "because all ways are blocked".

"We are at the border of a humanitarian catastrophe," he told Associated Press on Sunday as a curfew continued in the city which he said allowed authorities to hunt "saboteurs" on the streets. "Right now, we have electricity, right now we have water and heating in our houses. But the infrastructure is destroyed to deliver the food and medication."

"That's why the message for everyone is: support Ukraine together ... We are strong," he said. "Every Ukrainian is proud to be independent, proud to be Ukrainian, and we are proud to have our own country."

[Syt]

The only thing that's new is those pictures of Putin sat twenty feet away from everyone, even his defence minister and chief of the generral staff. As Ben Judah put it those are pictures of a personal dictatorship not a regime - I'm not sure that doesn't increase the risk for Putin and for everyone else I think.

Yeah... it's not hard to imagine those two men, in leaving the meeting, saying to each other "well that sucked" and exchanging meaningful looks.

Obviously you have to be both careful when overthrowing a dictator, but if said dictator is always at least twenty feet away from everyone else then it becomes a little easier I think.

Maybe they can pull a Salazar and can make him believe he's still in power when he's very much not anymore.

[Sheilbh]

I've also seen more and more videos like this today of tanks reversing when faced with unarmed civilians:
https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1497972204851634191?s=20&t=Zbx74MJNr422590vmv9t_Q

It may be that Putin's bit about Ukrainians and Russians having so much in common is true - but not working the way he expected.

Obviously this may still escalate - especially if the Russians do, as Ukraine has said they are planning, a "false flag" to dehumanise Ukrainians. But I'm not totally sure Russian soliders are overly thrilled at the idea of killing Ukrainian civilians.

[OttoVonBismarck]

It's kind of interesting to juxtapose how dumb a big invasion like this is for Putin with other things he's done.

This invasion:

- Is going to be tremendously expensive
- If successful, is going to net him with what is likely a long-term albatross, not a long-term increase in Russian power
- Has isolated him from virtually every country on earth, even seeing China and Turkey while not fully breaking with him, at least showing they want "distance" from his behavior
- Has led to a major reinvigoration in NATO, likely to be followed up with long term, more permanent deployments to NATO's eastern borders, and several NATO countries sending signals of a long-term commitment to building up more defense capability
- Possibility of Finland/Sweden joining NATO
- Has led to an economic severing with the West, that even were he to make peace today, is very unlikely to ever go back to the way it was within Putin's lifetime. While the specific degree of separation will likely vary based at least somewhat on how this ends, it stands to reason that Russia is facing a generational loss of access and business with Western economies.

Now compare it to non-military techniques Putin has used:

- Conversion of Hungary into a pliable pawn
- Conversion of the U.S. GOP into partial Russian pawns, with at least several politicians potentially Russian aligned to some degree (Ron Johnson, Devin Nunes, Trump--even Democrat Tulsi Gabbard has some indications)

He didn't have to fire a single bullet for those things, and got pretty big return on investment. Just highlights how folly large scale invasions are these days.

[OttoVonBismarck]

The way Putin has undermined democracies in the past hit on the ways in which democracies are very vulnerable to attack due to being open societies. The way Putin is attacking Ukraine, he is not hitting at weakness he is hitting at strength. Democracies do not have a track record of being weak at war, in fact they have a track record of defending themselves savagely.

[Tamas]

Stalin and Mao both had enough nukes to be of concern lol.

Yeah but I am quite certain in 1953 at Stalin's death the existential threat to the West came from conventional Soviet forces, not from thousands of ICBM warheads.

[Syt]

- Has led to a major reinvigoration in NATO, likely to be followed up with long term, more permanent deployments to NATO's eastern borders, and several NATO countries sending signals of a long-term commitment to building up more defense capability
- Possibility of Finland/Sweden joining NATO
- Has led to an economic severing with the West, that even were he to make peace today, is very unlikely to ever go back to the way it was within Putin's lifetime. While the specific degree of separation will likely vary based at least somewhat on how this ends, it stands to reason that Russia is facing a generational loss of access and business with Western economies.

For now. But if we wake up tomorrow and Russian military announces that Putin has retired to a remote dacha and tasked them with initiating new elections for his succession, I expect it will not be long before we're back to business as usual because $$$

[OttoVonBismarck]

Yeah, if somehow Putin were removed I agree re-engagement with Russia could be swift. But otherwise not so much. Even aside from the government positions on it--business flourishes in predictability. The way Putin has acted a lot of major companies that have disinvested from Russia over this would be very hesitant to jump back in with Putin at the helm, since they could be in the same situation 2-4 years down the road when he does his next unpredictable thing.

[Syt]

The optimist in me hopes that in 20 years we look back and identify this as the watershed moment that opened the way for Russia to reform and modernize and become a liberal democracy, but I hoped that in the 90s too, so it's probably not gonna happen.

[Duque de Bragança]

The only thing that's new is those pictures of Putin sat twenty feet away from everyone, even his defence minister and chief of the generral staff. As Ben Judah put it those are pictures of a personal dictatorship not a regime - I'm not sure that doesn't increase the risk for Putin and for everyone else I think.

Yeah... it's not hard to imagine those two men, in leaving the meeting, saying to each other "well that sucked" and exchanging meaningful looks.

Obviously you have to be both careful when overthrowing a dictator, but if said dictator is always at least twenty feet away from everyone else then it becomes a little easier I think.

Maybe they can pull a Salazar and can make him believe he's still in power when he's very much not anymore.

You need a Caetano,"soft" dictator, for that, remember. Does not look like headed that way.

[Josquius]

I've also seen more and more videos like this today of tanks reversing when faced with unarmed civilians:
https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1497972204851634191?s=20&t=Zbx74MJNr422590vmv9t_Q

It may be that Putin's bit about Ukrainians and Russians having so much in common is true - but not working the way he expected.

Obviously this may still escalate - especially if the Russians do, as Ukraine has said they are planning, a "false flag" to dehumanise Ukrainians. But I'm not totally sure Russian soliders are overly thrilled at the idea of killing Ukrainian civilians.

What on earth is the tank doing out driving by itself?
That seems militarily unwise.

[Tamas]

I saw a Tweet which I assume is fake as no reputable source has repeated it for an hour, that one of the guys from that Putin photo,  Military Chief of Staff Gerasimov, has been fired by Putin.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I saw a Tweet which I assume is fake as no reputable source has repeated it for an hour, that one of the guys from that Putin photo,  Military Chief of Staff Gerasimov, has been fired by Putin.

I've seen it but I've been loath to believe it. It seems like the original source was a random "Ukraine singer" account on Twitter, and it was reported on Feb 26th by a Ukrainian news outlet with her as the only source. Gerasimov was seen in the video with Putin the day after that report, so it would seem the timeline doesn't match up. But then Col. Vindman retweeted a report about it from a Ukrainian language source, which gives it a little more credibility. We'll have to wait and see.