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

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Washout said:
Not disagreeing but I suspect nato and Eu are interchangeable here and it was Ukraines change to a more pro Eu government which has driven this.
Of course Russia doesn’t want to say out load that integrating more with the Eu will boost your economy and improve your way of life so they have to play the Nato angle.
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I would agree. One of things people here don't really appreciate is the level of corruption that exists in those east Slavic countries and was a hallmark of those former Soviet countries.

Some of the things I've seen would make people laugh with incredulity. One simple example; I remember when I first started to drive through and around the Baltics in the early part of this century. The condition of the roads was for years shockingly terrible and I'm not just talking about minor B roads in towns but what we would call the major A roads connecting large towns.

One of the main reasons for this is that the money meant to improve and maintain them was syphoned off by corrupt government officials. Now because of being in the E.U. and the greater need for transparency and accountability, that corruption has dropped massively so now many of those car suspension breaking roads I used to endure driving on have been turned into baby smooth tarmac.

It is also why Zelenskyy had to purge many in his government that still had their fingers in the till. Those Russian elites do not want that level of accountability or transparency. A war is an acceptable price to pay to maintain the status quo. (They won't be doing any fighting after all)
 
MartinPrince said:
I would agree. One of things people here don't really appreciate is the level of corruption that exists in those east Slavic countries and was a hallmark of those former Soviet countries.

Some of the things I've seen would make people laugh with incredulity. One simple example; I remember when I first started to drive through and around the Baltics in the early part of this century. The condition of the roads was for years shockingly terrible and I'm not just talking about minor B roads in towns but what we would call the major A roads connecting large towns.

One of the main reasons for this is that the money meant to improve and maintain them was syphoned off by corrupt government officials. Now because of being in the E.U. and the greater need for transparency and accountability, that corruption has dropped massively so now many of those car suspension breaking roads I used to endure driving on have been turned into baby smooth tarmac.

It is also why Zelenskyy had to purge many in his government that still had their fingers in the till. Those Russian elites do not want that level of accountability or transparency. A war is an acceptable price to pay to maintain the status quo. (They won't be doing any fighting after all)
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Something that I never really appreciated until oddly enough I was watching the lockpicking lawyer was how bad it was even at a really low and basic level, to the point where it was utterly routine for stuff to require two keys held by separate people to get to, because so many people in management would basically take stuff and sell it from stock etc, and not expensive stuff but routine fairly low value items.
 
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MartinPrince said:
I'll try and explain it this way. There are 3 east Slavic countries; Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. Their roots, history and peoples are greatly entwined, their languages are ~70% the same etc. So, to lose one of those countries to NATO/E.U./The West is unconscionable to Putin and the elites that control Russia. It could potentially spell the end for the way of life for them and how they control Russia. This is at its core an ideological war, similar to ISIS etc.
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To expand on this slightly:

Something many people don't realise these days is that while it's taught in history how Germany and the USSR carved up Poland in WW2, something never really mentioned is that the USSR never actually gave their part back. Like they kept it indefinitely to the point where today a relatively large portion of pre-WW2 Poland makes up modern day western Belarus and Ukraine, in order to justify this Stalin moved the western Polish border into Eastern Germany (obviously neither the Eastern German authorities or the Polish government in exile were too happy about this arrangement, so he threatened the Eastern German authorities with the gulag and created a new Polish government who together signed everything off.

The reason for that history lesson is because it leads into another one (sorry to those who just come here for the pew pew stuff and not to learn :P), and that is that (and this in no way validates anything Putin has done or affects the current legitimacy/sovereignty of Ukraine) prior to 1991 the countries of Belarus and Ukraine didn't exist, they were recognised states of the USSR and had been for almost 70 years but in reality in the USSR they were still just two parts of Russia that had been given additional status to make the USSR look like it had more members. A comparison would be if the UK government promoted Cornwall to a member state of the United Kingdom, in "theory" on par with Scotland/Wales/England but in reality still just a part of the UK controlled by Westminster and paying into the UK treasury. This is the reason why the Russian SSR was perfectly happy to "gift" Crimea to the Ukrainian SSR, it was a pure PR stunt (which comically backfired when the Crimean ASSR's government tried to challenge the dubious legality of it in Moscow court and had to be threatened with the Gulag) as Moscow was effectively just moving an internal border and (at the time) didn't think anything of it.

Okay with that out of the way here's the actual point, Putin's original push into Ukraine wasn't merely to try and capture Kiev and everything to the east, it was to try and somewhat restore Russia's historical (from their perspective) borders. The west of Ukraine wasn't actually that important to them, as while it hasn't been Poland for 70 years it's not really their idea of Russia, and if annexing most of Ukraine had resulted in a new western Ukraine state popping up between their new border and Poland then even better.
 
MartinPrince said:
I can see why some of us folks in the West would think that but in actuality it is about NATO BUT not for the reasons Putin says it is about NATO. (So you're partly correct. :))

I have the fairly unique perspective of dealing with Russians for many years; I've had two long term relationships with Russian girlfriends and one of my best friends is from Russia (Born in the same place as Putin, St Petersburg but brought up near Murmansk as his step dad was a naval officer at the base there). Though generally speaking I would have to confess I now despise most Russians and when I'm out and about in the Baltics and hear people speaking Russian I tend to "cross over on the other side".

That being said, I'm still inclined to correct some of the wrongly ascribed motives from my friends in the U.K. that really know very little about Russia and Russians in general. Yes, so on the face of it, Putin saying that he is protecting Russia from a potential attack from NATO is utter rubbish though in halting (or trying to halt) NATO expansion he is really trying to protect a Russian identity, that notion of them being superior etc.

I'll try and explain it this way. There are 3 east Slavic countries; Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. Their roots, history and peoples are greatly entwined, their languages are ~70% the same etc. So, to lose one of those countries to NATO/E.U./The West is unconscionable to Putin and the elites that control Russia. It could potentially spell the end for the way of life for them and how they control Russia. This is at its core an ideological war, similar to ISIS etc.

Using a crude analogy it would be a similar sentiment here in England if Wales decided they were going to become a Muslim fundamentalist country and aligned itself with Afghanistan/Iran. So when Putin says it is about NATO he is ultimately telling the truth, he is lying as to the reasons why it is about NATO et al because those reasons are not a defensive reason for a ̶w̶a̶r̶ "special military operation". They know NATO will never attack them first.

One of Putin's (another false) reasons was to protect the native Russians in East Ukraine who were being badly treated. This incidentally is a similar reason that Germany gave in WWII when they went into Poland as the Nazi's accused Poland of persecuting ethnic Germans living in Poland. Ironically many of those ethnic Russians from eastern Ukraine now curse Putin's name.

If it had nothing whatsoever to do with NATO then Putin would not have made it a condition for a cessation of hostilities last March mentioned above.
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I think Russia would like to keep western democracies and culture away from its borders - it has seen East Germany, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Hungry, the baltics and all the other eastern block countries move to the west - Ukraine was next and probably then Belarus. The elite in Russia new they would then be the next to change and I guess the people in power did not welcome that idea. I don't think it is about stoping stopping NATO expansion, but stopping western cultural expansion and hopefully pushing it back to the early eighties.
 
The elite in Russia are veritably gagging on western culture and products, they don't care about that in a personal capacity whatsoever.

Their 'worry' is that they lose control over resource allocation inside their borders and with immediate neighbours as it means they lose power over them as a means to increase their already massive wealth.
 
I'd hazard as much as anything that is China looking to manage their own economy situation as it is Russia's declining global influence. China seems to be entering a period of being more fiscally cautious.
 
Sankari said:
Looks like China is putting the screws on Putin now that Russia's global influence is fading.

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This isn't new news though, i posted about it several months ago. China is refusing new pipelines that come from Russia. Instead, China is going to build pipeline from Central Asia and thereby weaken Russia's dominion over Central Asia

The most important thing is that Russia has cut gas production by 30%. Without having somewhere to store gas, due to the fields that Russian gas comes from, reductions in production can have huge impacts such wells and fields that freeze up and can no longer be used without drilling new wells. But all of this assumes you care about not just dumping gas to keep the wells alive, which is what Gazprom did last year - they literally just set fire to their excess gas
 
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Sankari said:
You love to see it!
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I understand the enthusiasm for Ukraine swiftly joining the EU but I can't help but feel it's not a great idea for the EU itself. Ukraine would be somewhere near the 4th or 5th largest country in the EU, whilst also being by far the poorest, as well as the most unstable and the most corrupt. Positive sentiment will only go so far before it starts breeding resentment among other nations.
 
Mr Jack said:
I understand the enthusiasm for Ukraine swiftly joining the EU but I can't help but feel it's not a great idea for the EU itself. Ukraine would be somewhere near the 4th or 5th largest country in the EU, whilst also being by far the poorest, as well as the most unstable and the most corrupt. Positive sentiment will only go so far before it starts breeding resentment among other nations.
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You're right, Ukraine is in no fit state to join the EU. But in time, she could be.
 
See Russia will be increasing expenditure in the military
From sky.

Vladimir Putin has given his official approval to a significant increase in military spending that will see around 30% of fiscal expenditure directed towards the armed forces next year.

The Russian leader signed draft budget plans into law today as Moscow diverts more resources towards the war.

Spending on defence and security combined is set to reach around 40% of all budget expenditure next year.

Spending on defence is set to increase by almost 70% in 2024 from 2023.

The budget plans had already been approved by lawmakers in both houses of parliament, the State Duma and Federation Council.
 
Mr Jack said:
I understand the enthusiasm for Ukraine swiftly joining the EU but I can't help but feel it's not a great idea for the EU itself. Ukraine would be somewhere near the 4th or 5th largest country in the EU, whilst also being by far the poorest, as well as the most unstable and the most corrupt. Positive sentiment will only go so far before it starts breeding resentment among other nations.
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It could become the breadbasket of Europe. Imagine all that CAP. The French would be furious.
 
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