Ukraine Invasion - Please do not post videos showing attacks/similar

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bris said:
it will get worse for Putin at home too.

When the Russian soldiers go home they will tell their family and friends what really happened and it will spread like wildfire, no victory parade just the truth.

He can hide it with fake news broadcasts but he can't hide it straight from the horses mouth.
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I'd agree with that - especially given the numbers of soldiers engaged vs the number of FSB:
The FSB employs about 66,200 uniformed staff, including about 4,000 special forces troops. It also employs Border Service personnel of about 160,000–200,000 border guards
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I suspect that putin will monitor and attempt to blacklist anyone involved communicating though - including the recipients word of mouth.
 
Freddie1980 said:
I wonder what they could be? Did they tell say Russia's army should **** off back to where it came from and Ukraine should be left alone to make it's own way in the world?
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Interesting given the cold war east/West Berlin history.

Scholz probably wont make a comment. I wonder if Putin is attempting to turn the screw on gas supply vs political pressure to settle with Russia's demands.
 
Firestar_3x said:
- Some military experience, might learn from the mistakes for future conflict.
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Unlikely. Any military who has experience and respect is a threat. As with other conflicts, there will be a purge of military leaders, with many meeting curiously accidental deaths. Never underestimate how much Russia's gangster regime fears a capable and competent army.
 
Sankari said:
I have no idea what you are trying to say. My point is that if India thinks she stands to gain long term by sucking up to Russia, she is gravely mistaken. Russia is notoriously untrustworthy, far more powerful than India, and better placed to exploit any relationship they might develop, to India's detriment.
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I'm unconvinced. India's GDP is getting on for twice that of Russia's and growing. It has a larger military budget, and growing. It has a vastly larger population. It has better relationships with much of the world, and is better placed for trade. And while India is neither a model democracy nor free from corruption, it is much better governed than Russia in almost every way.

If Russia thinks it can push India around it will find itself much mistaken.
 
Firestar_3x said:
So other than some minor land grabs, which is seems like Ukraine refuses to give up, what has Russia actually gained out of this conflict?

- Return of the Soviet style of rule.
- Ability to further push the state held narrative at home.
- Compliance of the population.
- Broken away from the West and the ideals we hold.
- Some military experience, might learn from the mistakes for future conflict.
- What else?

The losses are just immeasurable (off the top of my head):
- Lost credibility as a superpower.
- Military is exposed as an underinvested, badly trained and equipped embarrassment.
- Loss of countless troops / equipment, tactics exposed for the west to review.
- Brain drain, load who can are leaving.
- Massive financial / business withdrawal from the country (current / future investment).
- Economy in tatters, loads of money held abroad, cut off from the world banking system.
- Credit rating is worse than junk.
- Diplomatic relationships shot, seen as a pariah state.
- Load of countries now seeking energy independence and turning away from Russia as a provider, which makes Russia's political clout less effective in the future.
- Galvanised NATO, massive future investment.
- EU have come together, cut red tape and actually doing things quickly.
- Exposed those around the world who are willing to stand up to what is right (most countries).
- The idea of making masses of lands into neutral spaces seems to have failed.
- More countries to push for NATO membership.
- NATO borders and weapon systems will now be closer to Russia.
- Everyone now sees through Russia's lies.

Could this have gone any worse?

Honestly if Russia didn't have nuclear weapons as a threat they would have been rolled even harder in Ukraine, good lesson never to give up our deterrent!
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Also he's sort of reunited the EU, as Moldova and Georgia and other countries(?) have applied to join the European Union....
 
Sankari said:
My point is that if India thinks she stands to gain long term by sucking up to Russia, she is gravely mistaken.
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doesn't India buy a lot of Russian military stuff..

probably having doubts about their choices now though.... land army is dead apart from to hold areas.

only thing that matters is missiles, rockets, drones and airplanes

ww1 all over again, apart from the tenches are lines on a map saying if your out of artillery range or not
 
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https://youtu.be/uscedb91yz8
 
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Freefaller said:
Quick question - and whilst I am convinced that Putin is deranged and has some strange agenda, is Ukraine and its politicians totally innocent? I'm not seeking conspiracy theories, but all of this harps back to 2014 right when the then Ukrainian president didn't want to join Europe? This cause civil unrest, the president was booted and Russian annexed Crimea. Then the country was split with pro-Russians and so on (didn't they shoot down a passenger plane?), and sanctions against Russia (deja vu?! :D) and so on, but the area is steeped in history about Russia "owning" Ukraine and losing its grip on it again and again.

However, is it purely a megalomaniac's ego (Putin pushing a Russian empire revival. And probably holds the view that Ukraine is a part of Russia and that it's a victim of Western "antagonism")? Or is there actually something less obvious happening as well? It's got to be more than just being part of Europe / NATO ? Or is it really that simple?

It just feels like Ukraine is the Europe / Russian punching bag, to skirt around the issues that no one wants to talk about - or perhaps I'm just looking for something that isn't there.

Apologies for the ignorant question, but I was pondering this on my commute this morning and I didn't know what the answer was.
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I’m not entirely sure what your question is. In what way is the current Ukrainian government complicit in the invasion of their country? There was a revolution, the pro-Russian leaders were thrown out and a democratically elected government put in.
Russia annexed, illegally, Crimea and the west allowed it. The Ukrainians were unable to stop it because they had little external help.

You’re skirting around the tails of the conspiracy theorists with questions like “is there more here?”. No, Putin wants to recreate the Soviet Union. He believes Ukraine belongs to Russia and wants it back. He doesn’t believe the Ukrainians have the right to have their own sovereign country. The government of Ukraine aren’t complicit in this and are innocent. What a bizarre suggestion.

There have been Russian leaning groups in the East, but by all legitimate accounts the majority wish to be Ukrainian and the majority of Ukrainians wish to side with Europe rather than Russia.
 
Freefaller said:
Also he's sort of reunited the EU, as Moldova and Georgia and other countries(?) have applied to join the European Union....
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Not entirely sure about that, corruption and necessary institutional reforms are still a big problem in all the remaining states. As unusually quick that they've moved on this issue I don't think they will acquiesce so easily on membership, though they could potentially shift their focus to the multi-speed model but there will be a lot of resistance to that.
 
arknor said:
doesn't India buy a lot of Russian military stuff..
probably having doubts about their choices now though.... land army is dead apart from to hold areas.
only thing that matters is missiles, rockets, drones and airplanes
ww1 all over again, apart from the tenches are lines on a map saying if your out of artillery range or not
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The Russian stuff Ukrainia uses seems to work ok.
 
Ahleckz said:
I’m not entirely sure what your question is. In what way is the current Ukrainian government complicit in the invasion of their country? There was a revolution, the pro-Russian leaders were thrown out and a democratically elected government put in.
Russia annexed, illegally, Crimea and the west allowed it. The Ukrainians were unable to stop it because they had little external help.

You’re skirting around the tails of the conspiracy theorists with questions like “is there more here?”. No, Putin wants to recreate the Soviet Union. He believes Ukraine belongs to Russia and wants it back. He doesn’t believe the Ukrainians have the right to have their own sovereign country. The government of Ukraine aren’t complicit in this and are innocent. What a bizarre suggestion.

There have been Russian leaning groups in the East, but by all legitimate accounts the majority wish to be Ukrainian and the majority of Ukrainians wish to side with Europe rather than Russia.
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Cool that's all I wanted to know. If there was more to it than that. That's it. No need to have little jibes about conspiracy theorist, as I said, it was a genuine "thinking out loud" question. Anyway, thanks for taking the time to reply.
 
Ahleckz said:
You’re skirting around the tails of the conspiracy theorists with questions like “is there more here?”.
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re-listen to newsnight last night - (not new but) Chinese and USA experts were eloquently postulating this is really a proxy war being fought with western weapons in the unfortunate Ukraine(collateral damage) and really part of a worldwided dictatorship versus liberal-democracy battle, with the consequence of enabling the spread of the former if the West don't provide further help ie. stakes are higher.

Despite any negotiation Ukraine may have, I don't see how they speak on wests behalf about any subsequent relaxation of sanctions, which I think could justifiably be used to help in infrastructure reparation costs, or for that matter refugee funding.
 
Hook said:
The Russian stuff Ukrainia uses seems to work ok.
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Ukraine are only holding areas which was part of what I wrote.


Putin can't move forward without coming under fire from artillery, seems it's a war of attrition now.


if he had better Intel, more cruise missiles etc maybe it would be different
 
StriderX said:
Not entirely sure about that, corruption and necessary institutional reforms are still a big problem in all the remaining states. As unusually quick that they've moved on this issue I don't think they will acquiesce so easily on membership, though they could potentially shift their focus to the multi-speed model but there will be a lot of resistance to that.
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I guess, but hence my caveat of "sort of", but at the same time it's shown that they do rally well together (refugees, arms support, sanctions etc...)
 
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