Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[PSOL]

Nothing is going to happen just as nothing happened before, if Russia wants to quickly act it would be the one to strike first.

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Continued theatrics that aren’t even entertaining. Wow, what tension.

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This is more boring than April.

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As we approach January, I’m going to repeat my statement that this is a nothingburger. Given the fact that Covid-19 has already damaged the Russian economy and the slipping and regaining of footing recently faced in the Caucasus and Central Asia, it was clear that Russia does not want a war right now, not so soon with the new guy whose already unpopular and weakly a placeholder for Putin.

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Russia isn’t willing to have two fronts to its South and East be engulfed in intensive fighting. Nothingburger

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All this hot air traveling fast could be harnessed for renewable energy

[PSOL]

In my opinion, after the recent events, including the invasion of Kazakhstan and Ryabkov's statements, Putin has already decided to invade. And, accordingly, Russia will launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. My inner feeling suggests that this may happen in late February.

Have Ukrainian forces been on high alert and mobilized everywhere?

[PSOL]

While I doubt Ukraine actually gets invaded, hopefully the Ukrainian Left takes the power vacumn to rise once again from the chaos push and get the Russian and NATO proxies out. I’m always having this video of Ukrainian anarchists being in the back of my mind.

Still, the fact that the Russians are making this pretty blatant and not doing this quickly is suspect that this is to try and get more concessions. Unless Andriy is lying to us, the lack of Ukrainian mobilization for a last stand or to resist is in itself either evidence that there won’t be an invasion or that, like Afghanistan, the EuroMaidan government really is that hollow.

[PSOL]

While I doubt Ukraine actually gets invaded, hopefully the Ukrainian Left takes the power vacumn to rise once again from the chaos push and get the Russian and NATO proxies out. I’m always having this video of Ukrainian anarchists being in the back of my mind.

Still, the fact that the Russians are making this pretty blatant and not doing this quickly is suspect that this is to try and get more concessions. Unless Andriy is lying to us, the lack of Ukrainian mobilization for a last stand or to resist is in itself either evidence that there won’t be an invasion or that, like Afghanistan, the EuroMaidan government really is that hollow.

One thing I forgot to mention is that on January 1, 2022, the Territorial Defense Forces appeared in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which, among other things, will resist the aggressor in the event of an invasion. Territorial defense will have a civilian component (state and local authorities) and military-civil (headquarters of territorial defense zones, voluntary formations of territorial communities).

Also in December, an order of the Ministry of Defense came into force, which significantly expanded the list of professions women of which must register for military accounting. Society has reacted very sharply to this, because by the end of 2022, all women of certain professions between the ages of 18 and 60 must register for military accounting.

Ok, well that is something, but I would expect something a bit more direct like a national call to mobilize or something.

Can anyone who knows about the Georgian invasion in 2006 give us any information? Were things this blatant?

[PSOL]

If there is an invasion, they won’t advance too far off from Donetsk and Luhansk and will stop a fair distance from Kiev.

[PSOL]

Ukraine should form an International Legion like Finland did in the 1930s.

Dear god please, it would lead to a decimation of the far right all over again. The pain of ISIS was just momentary to the grand collapse of Wahhabism and Qutbism.

[PSOL]

So the Ukrainian defense minister says there won’t be an invasion. So it really was all just posturing, like it was last time the Russians got noisy.

All this exposes is that very few people among even NATO members want war

[PSOL]

So the Ukrainian defense minister says there won’t be an invasion. So it really was all just posturing, like it was last time the Russians got noisy.

All this exposes is that very few people among even NATO members want war

He, like many Ukrainian officials, claims that "Russia is not ready for an invasion today," but no one denies that this could happen in a week or two.

I do not know the meaning of a speech, but the reports I am getting is that the inference was that an invasion in the short-term was unlikely.

Andriy, could you translate his whole speech and provide context.

[PSOL]

Unless Zelenskiy and the Defense minister are talking out of their @$$, this is yet again another nothingburger.

[PSOL]

If the US and its NATO allies aren't prepared to send their own citizens over to defend Ukraine, then they should just shut up about "serious consequences" for Russia (more sanctions won't work). I'm tired of this chicken hawkery from geopolitical chess playing Blob suits who have never had to face anything remotely approaching war.

This post explains the failure of the West's engagement in the Syrian conflict in a nutshell.

The rebels, YPG, and IS were deeply entrenched and were at a state of pushing out the Assad Regime up to the very point in late 2016 through mid-2017—that with some Iranian guidance—the Yemeni revolution brought a hostile state on Saudi borders and both Iran and Russia got deeply involved bringing a whole host of help to overwhelm the defunded TOW-delivery projects and Gulf money now diverted southward. It was through a coordinated effort of amping up the pressure regionally and bringing about discord in the systemic alliances and coordination of proxies that the Houthis have broken the GCC and the Assad regime has ended the Syrian Civil war with the inability to get Idlib back away from a Turkish colony.

If anyone is to blame outside of The US not enforcing a No-fly zone, it is the Gulf countries and Jordan not invading Syria and cutting the long stalemate there and rebellion in Yemen from the bud. They failed spectacularly also in not presenting a unified plan of action and instead let funds and other resources be distributed in a disorganized manner to Al-Qaeda’s numerous franchises and allied groupings, Ahrar Al-Sham, the Southern Front, and some rogue (and not so rogue) sheikhs funding the IS. Then the US should be blamed allowing the oil fields controlled by the YPG get complicated in continuing the flow by abandoning them so hard that they went begging to Russia.

What is happening in Ukraine is an insurmountable magnitude more incompetent than that, given they have an entire state to work with and for most militias to be well integrated into the state. What is concerning is the weapons transfers continuing as major sections of the US and it’s minor partners and national proxies outright say they won’t defend Ukraine and deny it membership as Russia pulls a master ruse to goad some of the oligarchs and militias to see reality for a brief moment. The political situation in Ukraine is heading towards not annexation, but inner collapse first as Ukrainian society is in free fall from Covid and a lack of FDI because of war-fearmongering that they repeatedly deny is happening.

All of this without the escalation in fighting, and yet Russia successfully exposed NATO, the EU, and the United States as paper tigers, pushovers, and disunited pansies.

[PSOL]

Next week will be the best development in humanity since the development of the Covid-19 vaccines. I await either Russia being buried under the corpse of Ukraine or the sheer silence of this turning out to be a nothingburger.

[PSOL]

I need argument to to prove ww3 isn’t going to happen because of this to calm my step siblings down any tips

Both Zelenskiy and the defense minister of Ukraine have denied that war will happen soon and they have yet to provide a statement to the contrary. There’s been limited mobilization, and indeed Zelenskiy has instead been focusing on internal dissidents necessary to keep a United government.

The US didn’t care in Georgia, and the last few years of throwing our allies under the bus signal they won’t get involved by fighting a war with Russia.

Germany does not care and has signaled that they won’t do s•••, even though this is the most pro-US government since Konrad Adenauer.

Russia is currently suffering already from a weak economy, a weak grasp of their backyard after a period of stabilization all of last year, and internal dissent at all time highs. Fighting a war against a state and then dealing with the aftermath on an economically worthless territory filled to the brim with hostile proxy groups isn’t worth it.

[PSOL]

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This isn't some kind of game.

It absolutely is for fascists like PSOL.

PSOL is many things, stupid, yes. But calling someone a fash who isn’t one just lessens the meanin.

Stupid, maybe but I’m not a fascist

Anyway I somewhat doubt that this isn’t just another ruse, but even if it is not I can only see positive things from it decades from now in bettering international politics by making everyone I dislike lose compared to the carnage. And my opponents losing means more opportunity for the common good. 

[PSOL]

https://twitter.com/pbump/status/1494162257655345153?s=20&t=396ywKAGDEETpzLZ...

Ukraine and the Russians have always shelled each other.

Like I said before, this is a nothingburger.

[PSOL]

I see this is the new Trump Inauguration phenomenon of the dates constantly moving

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SirWoodbury is a Russian fetishist, he will pretend not to be but he is. He should stay on here because he provides news of Russian victories which more pro Ukraine users may ignore, but keep that in mind.

He doesn’t want Putin to win so much as for Biden, the EU, and Zelensky to lose.

He is awful that way.

No, he really does want Putin to win.

[PSOL]

Alright, I have to say it. Russia’s military blunders and the fact they are relying on Iranian drones now has basically decimated any credibility of it being a major power. The fact of the matter is that it can barely be called a regional power anywhere either. The current government will not recover from this militarily or even stability-wise.

I say this because 1. This indicates that Iran’s advancements in diplomacy in the Caucuses and Central Asia makes them a more relevant power if Russia didn’t have nukes or have a permanent seat in the UN, especially militarily. This also puts Russia in an immensely weak position to negotiate with the usual neutral nations in its midst. Finland and Turkey’s bargaining power, if they do choose to go for it, is immensely high.

2. Russian losses in having control over in Ukraine, Caucuses, or Central Asia means that Russian proxies and allies are going to bounce off. We’ve seen Kazakhstan just drop off in being a total pushover to Russia and Armenia having to balance the interests of the NATO nations (bar Turkey) and Iran. Belarus, which has been unfairly labeled into being a Russian proxy since major protests way back when, is in an immensely strenuous position with total Russian failure in Ukraine offering no assurances of Putin being able to save Belarus if things escalate into a civil war or if NATO strikes. I honestly don’t think they’ll go back to balancing east v west once things die down, they honestly might bail to being a EU ally if Russia’s geopolitical position gets any worse. The real question is, wtf does Serbia do?

3. Yeah, I’m calling it. Russia is at it’s most vulnerable since the latter Perestroika period. Regime collapse is very likely this decade. Only question is if they tire NATO enough to prevent real expansion into Russia’s pre-2014 European borders entirely? If a regime collapse occurs, where it’s going to be a bloody mess overall, on the European front we could see consolidation with minimal losses or loss of positioning. The Central Asian and Far East, like in 1917, will be in flux

[PSOL]

The war has destroyed the wealth of most of the Russian and Ukrainian elite—bar the figures in good standing around Zelenskyy which get tons of money by the West one way or another—and have weakened the hold of the dominant form of Capital groupings being of and being accountable to the Russian state. We are seeing the rebirth of direct challenge by not just non-Russian, nonconformist business leaders but of sections of the working class. Ukraine with hefty NATO assistance and direction has destroyed most of the left within Russia as well as curtailing the oligarchy to serve the war effort, so that leaves Russia in a war less successful than our Vietnam and quickly leading to societal breakdown.

Any person on the Russian Marxist-Leninist/pro-Soviet left who doesn’t see this as a great time to revolt and seize power, just as the revolution after the Japanese war ended in failure, isn’t worth listening to. This is a great time for organizing, and once there’s a persistent ceasefire a great time for revolution. The Russian Maoist party, the same one which hosts that famous writer of the Chechen conflict who was/is a member at the time, has the right ideas and is going to be part of this process along with other fellow travelers.

[PSOL]

This war has been a personal testing ground for many nations to sell weaponry; the US, EU, Turkey, Israel, China, Iran, Morocco, Japan, South Korea, South Africa…I’m just waiting for Brazil and Algeria to enter the mix as the last nations with a strong domestic weapons production market.