Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

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Yup, mil.ru and eng.mil.ru still appear to be offline. After several attempts I was able to temporarily reach kremlin.ru and en.kremlin.ru, but it takes a while and then the website looks pretty shot.

Appears that's because there's not enough bandwidth for the stylesheets and javascript files to load.

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BASED

https://mobile.twitter.com/IAPonomarenko/status/1497803660809711623

What was this? it's gone.

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The DEFCON level has moved to 2! The 3rd time that has ever happen. The first time the DEFCON went to level 2 was the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Second Time was during the Persian Gulf War.

Sounds like this is just a guess.

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Russia raised there equivalence of DEFCON level to 2 first, which then US immediately raised their DEFCON level to 2.

I'm saying there's no reporting of that, at least not that I can find.

[emailking]

Russia raised there equivalence of DEFCON level to 2 first, which then US immediately raised their DEFCON level to 2.

I'm saying there's no reporting of that, at least not that I can find.

I found reporting from AP. (Russia nuclear risk levels are the opposite of America)

But for the US raising the defcon level, there's nothing on that. Just that website that puts up what they think the defcon level is.

[emailking]

The US has solid intelligence that Putin is frustrated and expressing unusual bursts of anger at people in his inner circle over the state of the military campaign so far and the worldwide condemnation of his actions

Oh boohoo.

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I agree, it sounds like we have somebody high up on the inside. But also no way to really know.

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Loved the show and have since watched everything that Shawn Ashmore and Brooke Nevin have been in. Didn't read the books though.

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I believe Eritrea also supported the 2003 Iraq invasion.

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I can't believe I have to say this: please stop posting Marco Rubio tweets into this thread as if he's a credible analyst or commentator. He's a political operator who played a significant role in trying to orchestrate a failed plot to remove Maduro in Venezuela. As part of this, he routinely bluffed and lied, acting as a propagandist along the way. Your instinct should be to see anything he has to say as serving some kind of political purpose. If one isn't a bloodthirsty hawk, your instinct should be to see his political purpose as adding a giant section to Arlington cemetery.

He's been pretty accurate and his tweets are interesting. So I think it's fine.

[emailking]

I keep hearing calls for negotiation. What is there to negotiate? Just how much independence these Eastern areas of Ukraine with a lot of Russians should have?

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I think he stops at Ukraine, but I'd be very doubtful he tries for a NATO state.

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The reason I'm doubtful he'd try for a NATO state is because he knows it would mean the end. That wasn't the case in the 40s.

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The winds would take the bulk of the radiation over Russia right?

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In the thread he says it's unlikely to pass.

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There's a ceasefire in Mariupol.

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In the tweet thread he said 2 former or current FSB contacts thought the letter is genuine but don't agree with the conclusions. So it's just 1 guy's opinion.

[emailking]

Yeah I think Russia wins the war, but a Ukraine win looks like less of a long shot than it did a week ago.

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We have to consider what we mean by "win" here. Take Kiev and impose a set of borders and puppet gov't sure that is possible. But that isn't enough to avoid getting bled dry by resistance, especially in Western and South Western Ukraine.

I really wish folks predicting a Russian win can expand on what that actually means. Russia taking over the whole country? Just the Eastern part? I also wonder, particularly among the "Russia will win because they just will" contingent, if there's an over-emphasis on the numbers game and not even on the logistical, economical & morale problems Russia has. Every day Russia doesn't advance towards Kiev is another day where Ukraine can resupply & add defense.

At this point in time, I can't see Russia taking all of Ukraine. As you alluded to, almost all of the fighting has taken place in the pro-Russian regions on flatter, favorable terrain against a seemingly unprepared target. For the Russians, this was as close to a cakewalk as you could get for an invasion. If they're having this much trouble, how the hell are they gonna fare out west on rougher terrain & even stronger resistance.

I think this ends with a West & East Ukraine, with the main question being what side Kiev lies on (Unless it's cut in half which I can easily see)

It's just a best guess. Like I don't have a good answer for that stuff. A win would be like what Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee described.

[emailking]

At what point do you think the US and NATO would legitimately use our militaries to intervene? Like, if Russia attacks Georgia to take it over, then Kazakhstan, then Moldova, like at some point we would draw a line right?

What do you think we would do if Russia nuked Kyiv? Like, a straight up Tsar Bomba on Kyiv, killing all 3M inhabitants?

What if Russian troops kidnapped Zelenskyy and publicly executed him? What about a massive cyberattack on NATO countries power grids?

If they attack a NATO country.

Maybe special forces would take out Putin or something but we would not attack militarily.

Nothing but condemnation.

Probably a war ensues.

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If the jets won't be that useful then it makes sense to minimize the chances of WW3. I'm just saying, the criticism of it in this thread is somewhat baffling to me. I'm surprised we've been helping as much as we have given the risk.

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If the jets won't be that useful then it makes sense to minimize the chances of WW3. I'm just saying, the criticism of it in this thread is somewhat baffling to me. I'm surprised we've been helping as much as we have given the risk.

I've grown extremely tired of this lame "escalation" argument with respect to fighter jets. It's lazy and makes zero sense. It exudes weakness and only encourages Putin.

I don't know if it would escalate it or not. But the military that this is a bad idea. They're the ones who have the experts looking at this and have intelligence we're not privy to. It might make sense if you knew everything. Maybe not, there could be internal disagreement about this too.

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As if they're seriously going to start A-war with NATO  On top of the one war they're having great difficulty with already?!?

If they genuinely see it as us starting the war, which is something I'm scared of, then that doesn't really matter.

[emailking]

If the jets won't be that useful then it makes sense to minimize the chances of WW3. I'm just saying, the criticism of it in this thread is somewhat baffling to me. I'm surprised we've been helping as much as we have given the risk.

I've grown extremely tired of this lame "escalation" argument with respect to fighter jets. It's lazy and makes zero sense. It exudes weakness and only encourages Putin.

I don't know if it would escalate it or not. But the military that this is a bad idea. They're the ones who have the experts looking at this and have intelligence we're not privy to. It might make sense if you knew everything. Maybe not, there could be internal disagreement about this too.

"Minimizing the chance of WW3" implies you think that giving them jets would be escalation.

With respect to "the military said it's a bad idea", frankly Ukraine has said additional fighter jets would help them immensely and allow them to destroy Russian artillery and armor which are slaughtering civilians. Our military predicted Kyiv would fall in 2 days, so I put much more stock in what the Ukranian military on the ground says as opposed to ours. Also I can't fathom a reason why giving the Ukranians more air power would not be a good idea or would be ineffective given how much of a fight they've put up already with such a small air force. I don't see how more fighter jets = bad. That makes no sense and smells like a gaslighting talking point from bureaucrats.

I saw it as cost benefit analysis. Obviously it will help some, but it has to be balanced against the risk. I think it will escalate is not the same as I know it will escalate.

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The WSJ reports: The Ukraine MiG-29 Fiasco Gets Worse - Biden personally vetoed the delivery of jets for fear of provoking Putin.

I don't think this is much of a story (it's written like an opinion piece, tbh), but it is interesting (and a little dispiriting) that the decision to veto it was actively signed off by him to avoid escalation as opposed to being a result of the Pentagon speaking out against it and simply not getting challenged.

Words can’t describe how poorly Brandon screwed up. He would sell his grandchild to Putin if asked to.

That's horrible dude.