Russia and its “Special Operation” in Ukraine

[Delphinho123]

4 minutes ago, CVByrne said:

Putin will want to encircle Kyiv, have captured southern Ukraine and Eastern Ukraine. When a ceasefire is agreed he will keep hold of that territory to be given to Pro Russian sepratists which ill include Transnistria. So Ukraine will be split in two

I agree with this. This is the most probably outcome and probably the ‘best’. 

What I find so odd is, what on earth was the point of it all? Did he think this would strike fear into NATO? Did he think we’d just let it happen without consequence? 

He’s managed to grab a bit of land of no real important… for what? The sanctions on Russia will destroy their economy slowly, his popularity at home will be through the floor, the currency is worthless, more countries will join NATO, the current NATO countries will increase their spending, countries will look elsewhere for Gas, they can’t participate in any global sport, their own hockey/football leagues will be in ruin, he’s killed thousands of his own troops and thousands of Ukrainians. 

Did he account for this? 

[romavillan]

 

[tonyh29]

6 hours ago, TheAuthority said:

Ancient Civilizations weren't really in the discussion but yes, slavery was used for those construction projects.

Cough - pyramids weren’t built by slaves 

But topic seems to be going OT 

[sne]

8 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

Cough - pyramids weren’t built by slaves 

But topic seems to be going OT 

[Demitri_C]

12 hours ago, Xela said:

Good choice!

If Russia do nuke us, I hope we have some warning as I have a Terry's chocolate orange in the cupboard that i'd like to have before i'm vapourised. 

If we gonna vaporised i want some notice so i can get off keto and enjoy a greasy burger and the dirtiest chocolate dessert before we perish

[magnkarl]

Russia has tried to land in Kharkiv and capture a military hospital, but has been repelled. In Kherzon they've also tried the same but lost a squad to the defenders. It's not going too well for Russia's airbourne regiments..

[LondonLax]

Putting the #IStandWithPutin hashtag into Twitter brings up loads of Indian accounts. Are they Modi's nationalists?

[TDR V2]

7 minutes ago, LondonLax said:

Putting the #IStandWithPutin hashtag into Twitter brings up loads of Indian accounts. Are they Modi's nationalists?

They are trying to curry favour with him

[sne]

Interesting long read about how complex this situation is for other countries. This time Israel but similar will be true for loads of other countries albeit in different ways.

Also rubbishes the Russian claim that Ukraine is ran by Nazis 

Quote

War in Ukraine Forces Israel Into a Delicate Balancing Act

Israel is a strong ally of the United States, and its leaders have a good relationship with Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s Jewish president. But Israel also doesn’t want to provoke Russia.

TEL AVIV — On the day Russia invaded Ukraine, Israel’s prime minister, Naftali Bennett, did not mention Russia once. Mr. Bennett said he prayed for peace, called for dialogue and promised support for Ukrainian citizens. But he did not hint at Moscow’s involvement, much less condemn it — and it was left, as preplanned, to Mr. Bennett’s foreign minister, Yair Lapid, to criticize Moscow in a separate statement that day.

The pair’s cautious double act embodied the bind in which the war in Ukraine has placed Israel.

Israel is a key partner of the United States, and many Israelis appreciate longstanding cultural connections with Ukraine, which, for several months in 2019, was the only country other than their own with both a Jewish president — Volodymyr Zelensky — and a Jewish prime minister. But Russia is a critical actor in the Middle East, particularly in Syria, Israel’s northeastern neighbor and enemy, and the Israeli government believes it cannot risk losing Moscow’s favor.Israel also wants to leave itself enough room to act as a go-between in the conflict. After Ukrainian requests, Mr. Bennett has offered at least twice to mediate between Russia and Ukraine, most recently on Sunday — when Mr. Bennett rushed abruptly from a cabinet meeting to speak with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia for 40 minutes. And Israeli officials, including Mr. Bennett, shuttled between their Russian, Ukrainian and American counterparts on Sunday afternoon, two senior Israeli officials said, a mediation that may have contributed to Ukraine’s decision to meet with Russian officials on the Belarusian-Ukrainian border. 

Israel also wants to avoid taking any action that might stir antisemitism against the hundreds of thousands of Jews in both Ukraine and Russia.

And Israeli officials must simultaneously consider the responses of Israel’s large Russian-speaking population, who form about 12 percent of its electorate. Roughly 1.2 million Russian speakers have arrived in Israel from the former Soviet Union over the past three decades, about a third of them from Russia and about the same from Ukraine, according to government data.

Some of the latter are even back in Ukraine to defend their original homeland.

“Yes, I love Israel, but I have two countries and I need to defend both of them,” said Mykhailo, 25, an Israeli-Ukrainian digital marketer currently fighting in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, who asked to be identified only by his first name for security reasons...

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/27/world/middleeast/israel-ukraine-russia.html

Full article in link. It's really interesting IMO.

[CVByrne]

1 hour ago, Delphinho123 said:

I agree with this. This is the most probably outcome and probably the ‘best’. 

What I find so odd is, what on earth was the point of it all? Did he think this would strike fear into NATO? Did he think we’d just let it happen without consequence? 

He’s managed to grab a bit of land of no real important… for what? The sanctions on Russia will destroy their economy slowly, his popularity at home will be through the floor, the currency is worthless, more countries will join NATO, the current NATO countries will increase their spending, countries will look elsewhere for Gas, they can’t participate in any global sport, their own hockey/football leagues will be in ruin, he’s killed thousands of his own troops and thousands of Ukrainians. 

Did he account for this? 

There were a few big items in Putins calculation. Two were poor Ukrainian Resistance and the other was a divided Nato where Sanctions wouldn't be as hard as they are. Aside from those mis calculations of his opponents there were a few reasons he's invaded.

One is because large amounts of oil and gas have been found in Eastern Ukraine and in the black sea West of Crimea. If Ukraine tapped these they already have pipelines available to sell to Europe thus pivoting more of Europe away from Russian Oil and Gas which is over 50% of the entire Russian economy. Also Crimea was being starved of water by the blocking off of the canal that fed it from the Dnieper river. So economically there are reasons in terms of realpolitik

Then comes the security and resentment reasons, lots of Russians and Pro Russians live in Eastern and Southern Ukraine but they will always be the minority in the wider Ukraine population, especially as Crimea was removed from it. If they were broken away from Ukraine then they could be new Pro Russian buffer states between Russia and Nato. It also helps Putin draw a line in the sand about the Eastern expansion of Nato, Belarus and half of Ukraine will always be in Pro Russia side and any country like Georgia will be invaded if they even flirt with the idea of joining Nato. 

Europe will always buy Russian Oil and Gas. So once he has taken the Ukrainian Oil and Gas too he's secured the most important element of the Russian economy for the future. He can also focus on selling more to China and over time the Russian economy will adapt to the sanctions. Nato expansion will be halted and Russian sphere of influence tightened.

I agree the best outcome for this war now is the southern and eastern Ukraine is annexed for the new Pro Russian states. There is a ceasefire but no treaty. Ukraine is split up.

Edited March 2, 2022 by CVByrne

[The Fun Factory]

1 hour ago, Delphinho123 said:

I agree with this. This is the most probably outcome and probably the ‘best’. 

What I find so odd is, what on earth was the point of it all? Did he think this would strike fear into NATO? Did he think we’d just let it happen without consequence? 

He’s managed to grab a bit of land of no real important… for what? The sanctions on Russia will destroy their economy slowly, his popularity at home will be through the floor, the currency is worthless, more countries will join NATO, the current NATO countries will increase their spending, countries will look elsewhere for Gas, they can’t participate in any global sport, their own hockey/football leagues will be in ruin, he’s killed thousands of his own troops and thousands of Ukrainians. 

Did he account for this? 

Like John Simpson says, Putin has been virtually in isolation for 2 years due to the Covid pandemic, so his Russian Empire philosophy have become more 'interesting'. Or unhinged.

[sne]

 

[hippo]

50 minutes ago, CVByrne said:

There were a few big items in Putins calculation. Two were poor Ukrainian Resistance and the other was a divided Nato where Sanctions wouldn't be as hard as they are. Aside from those mis calculations of his opponents there were a few reasons he's invaded.

One is because large amounts of oil and gas have been found in Eastern Ukraine and in the black sea West of Crimea. If Ukraine tapped these they already have pipelines available to sell to Europe thus pivoting more of Europe away from Russian Oil and Gas which is over 50% of the entire Russian economy. Also Crimea was being starved of water by the blocking off of the canal that fed it from the Dnieper river. So economically there are reasons in terms of realpolitik

Then comes the security and resentment reasons, lots of Russians and Pro Russians live in Eastern and Southern Ukraine but they will always be the minority in the wider Ukraine population, especially as Crimea was removed from it. If they were broken away from Ukraine then they could be new Pro Russian buffer states between Russia and Nato. It also helps Putin draw a line in the sand about the Eastern expansion of Nato, Belarus and half of Ukraine will always be in Pro Russia side and any country like Georgia will be invaded if they even flirt with the idea of joining Nato. 

Europe will always buy Russian Oil and Gas. So once he has taken the Ukrainian Oil and Gas too he's secured the most important element of the Russian economy for the future. He can also focus on selling more to China and over time the Russian economy will adapt to the sanctions. Nato expansion will be halted and Russian sphere of influence tightened.

I agree the best outcome for this war now is the southern and eastern Ukraine is annexed for the new Pro Russian states. There is a ceasefire but no treaty. Ukraine is split up.

I also think these skirmishes will continue until all territory in that area is either Russian or NATO control.

Only then will a cold war start.

I also worry about the fine print in the sanctions. We are already seeing rumours of a grace period.

[snowychap]

9 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

 

I've heard the same claim made about Clent as well. It's surely nonsense, though I don't know how to check for sure.

Same claim made often about Worcester Beacon, too.

[Hobsons Choice]

1 minute ago, hippo said:

I also think these skirmishes will continue until all territory in that area is either Russian or NATO control.

Only then will a cold war start.

I also worry about the fine print in the sanctions. We are already seeing rumours of a grace period.

We need to avoid a hot war before we start worrying about a cold one. 

[Awol]

Russian state propaganda is so preposterous, it’s hard to believe the average Vlad in the street is swallowing it

 

[Genie]

1 minute ago, Awol said:

Russian state propaganda is so preposterous, it’s hard to believe the average Vlad in the street is swallowing it

 

The average Vlad must have access to independent internet sources of what is really going on?

[tonyh29]

Paraphrasing , but the Military expert on radio 5 live just now reckons  Russia are reluctant to do too much damage to Kyiv as its part of the bigger plan ( when its all over ) , hence why the military convoy is not moving in ..instead he believes they they will bomb the bejebus out of Kharkiv  and kinda use that as " this will be you next ,if you don't' surrender "

 

He also thought that Jinping was the best hope for resolving it  , should he choose to put pressure / influence  on Putin 

Edited March 2, 2022 by tonyh29

[CVByrne]

13 minutes ago, hippo said:

I also think these skirmishes will continue until all territory in that area is either Russian or NATO control.

Only then will a cold war start.

I also worry about the fine print in the sanctions. We are already seeing rumours of a grace period.

I think like the partition of Korea which was a ceasefire and there has never been a treaty. I think that's how the split of Ukraine will be. I can imagine in the occupied territories there will be some resistance to the pro Russian rule. 

Then it'll be a different type of cold war though. As there is no ideology communist vs capitalist. There are no new battlegrounds like Korea, Cuba, Vietnam etc.. to have. It'll be Russia + it's dominated neighbours vs the Western World.

 

[Hobsons Choice]

10 hours ago, sidcow said:

Sounds like China might be getting jumpy. Hopefully they can reign the dog in. 

I said right from the start that the key to this is China. They can enable Russia financially in the face of sanctions, and they can smother it by not buying their produce. 

If China can stop the war and play this right they can come out of this economically and geopolitically massively boosted. They look like the big boys on the world stage, which increases their prestige (face), they can be seen to be stable and exhibiting good judgment in the west, which will boost foreign investment, plus they have a Russia desperate for money willing to throw oil and gas at them.