Ukraine Invasion - Please do not post videos showing attacks/similar
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There is also another angle to that other angle (it sounded less stupid in my head).
Everyone and their dog can tell you that NATO article five means an attack on one is an attack on all and combined might of NATO this, unstoppable wrath that, etc etc. However what people who have never actually read up on it always miss is that article five is not a provision/requirement to go to war to help another member, it is a promise to provide "assistance" to that member. It was made this way specifically so that the USA would in no way be required to show up to another war in Europe unless it really wanted too. All members are required to do is "assist" the member under attack, be that through direct military intervention, just shipping them weapons, sending economic aid, or simply offering condemnation of the attacker in the UN.
This bring us to the point that even if Ukraine had been part of NATO before 2022 then there's no real guarantee that things wouldn't have played out mostly as they have, with everyone clamouring to send support to Ukraine and sanction/condemn Russia but not actually wanting to join in themselves.
And that's the worrying angle, Putin may be saying he has no issue with Ukraine joining NATO not because he thinks it will take decades, but because he knows public opinion on Ukraine support is already wavering in the west and he thinks that if he spends five years hyper re-arming then goes into Ukraine again that NATO governments will be unwilling to actually send people to die for their newest member
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That's actually a cold war era revisionist myth. The multi-million strong Soviet super army that zerged through walls of bullets to push the superior Wehrmacht forces back to Berlin didn't exist, at least not at that point in history.
When you see films set in Stalingrad where they're handing out one rifle and two clips to a pair of soldiers, that's not because they had an overabundance of soldiers, it's because their weapons shortage was even worse than their soldiers shortage. The reality is that the main turning point in the east came about because Stalin finally admitted to himself that he didn't know **** about warfare and gave his generals carte blanche to do whatever they wanted, at almost the exact same time that Hitler decided that his generals didn't know **** about warfare and he needed to micromanage everything. What resulted was an almost constant series of Soviet forces using superior tactics to defeat German forces that were either better equipped, numerically superior or in some cases both.
It wasn't until they were closing in on Berlin that the Soviet army actually started hitting the crazy numbers of soldiers that often gets cited as the reason for their victory in the east.
This myth was invented during the cold war to simultaneously discredit the capabilities of the Soviet army, while at the same time excusing the failures of what was now the West German army (who were now our allies against the vile Rooskies). This was also partially the same reason that the incompetent Nazi tank commander Rommel was retconned into an honourable German who only wanted to fight for his country (the other part being that the truth about the British army struggling in the desert against a tactically inept moron with some panzers was embarrassing).
It should be noted that while the Soviet Union was indeed an oppressive, murderous regime under Stalin (and Khrushchev, etc) they didn't actually side with Hitler then switch sides partway through like Italy and Finland did.
What actually happened was, Chamberlain met with Hitler, realised he was a lying madman and that war was coming, etc, so he agreed to the appeasement deal to stall him and give Britain/France time to try and build up their military. Then Stalin (also seeing through Hitler) offered an anti-Nazi pact to Britain and France, which would involve a united front against Hitler and the two way transfer of weapons/soldiers. Sadly, Britain and France were at the time more distrustful of Communism than they were of Nazism so it never happened. This left Stalin no choice left but to make a deal with Hitler himself in order to buy time before he attacked.
As is often mentioned the resulting pact also involved Germany and the USSR carving up Poland between themselves, but what's often forgotten is that neither Hitler nor Stalin actually cared about this provision. Because they both knew Hitler would be taking all of it anyway as his forces marched towards the USSR.
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If it's not true, why have you left your fake news posted?
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They were looking at the cathedral ....
It's better that people mark incorrect information as incorrect, than to redact it as that way it often gets reposted (and also having fake news highlighted as fake also serves to inform people it's fake).
I edited the post to state it was fake does it even matter?
Worth pointing out that this interpretation of what happened is very charitable to Stalin and his regime, and ignores some reasonable reservations and concerns that other parties might have had about the intent, effect, and trustworthiness of any deal that might have been negotiated beyond a preference for fascism vs communism.
Stalin didn't seem too unhappy with the deal in the interim, continuing to supply vital resources to Germany and supporting their war effort right up until the point where that bit him in the backside.
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Yep, until the point Hitler attacked, Stalin continued to sell oil, gas and food to the Germans, and the Germans sold some military equipment to the Soviets.
In fact in the 5 months just before Germany attacked, the soviets sent to Germany: 820,000 metric tons of oil, 1,500,000 metric tons of grain and 130,000 metric tons of metals. And Germany sent the Soviets: a Battleship naval cruiser, construction plans of the Bismarck, other Germany naval manuals, documents and assistance, machinery for building battleships, naval guns, instructions for building naval guns and test samples of 30 new war planes. Also sent to the Soviets were trains, diesel engines, tanks, artillery shells, explosives and other military gear.
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I think selling them naval information was/is pretty much an insult with how awful the Russians have been at naval warfare for it's entire history and as such no value in withholding it from them but plenty in selling it.
Soldato
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Most of those diesel engines are still in use today
China in recent years has supplied Russia with diesel engines for ships and tanks, including supposedly a program to replace the turbines in some T-80s, apparently the engines are **** and not fit for purpose so Russia has had to go back to the drawing board on designing their own.
People are either ignorant or unaware of the fact Russia also invaded Poland when Germany invaded. They had also invaded Finland.
The western allies saw them as useful idiots. More of a “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” kind of thing.
As far as the west helping Russia defeat the Germans, Russia had stopped the Germans at Moscow in Nov 1941, before the USA had entered the war. Once the USA entered the war against Germany, AND Germany had failed to rapidly defeat the soviets, their defeat was pretty much a case of when and not if.
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While that is true the allies (USA + Britain) began delivering aid within a month or so of the invasion of the USSR. I believe British tanks and other materiel were being used already in the defence of Moscow. Whether these supplies made a significant difference so early on is impossible to say.
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