Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[AndyHogan14]

https://mobile.twitter.com/Tendar/status/1592221551973523456
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Sievierodonetsk and Rubizhne but not Lysychansk? That seems strange...

[AndyHogan14]

Well well well...
https://twitter.com/AmichaiStein1/status/1592583028362342403

That sound you can hear is the Poles smashing the Article 5 button.

Trigger Article 5, clear the Russian trash out of Ukraine, and end this.

[AndyHogan14]

Most likely an accident, but the threshold for tolerance will be lower given that the target was likely immovable infrastructure or another civilian target.

Of course it was an accident, the Russians aren't suicidal enough to purposely hit a NATO country. With that said, Russia will never be weaker and any nuclear threats are a massive bluff. We could just provide air support to the Ukrainians under a triggered article 5 and the Russians would be driven out by Christmas.

[AndyHogan14]

Most likely an accident, but the threshold for tolerance will be lower given that the target was likely immovable infrastructure or another civilian target.

Of course it was an accident, the Russians aren't suicidal enough to purposely hit a NATO country.

They've done their fair share of SOF operations that ended with exploding ammo dumps/brazen assassinations. They may have sent the Tu-141 that crashed in Croatia, although that was probably malfunctioning. It is also quite possible that they were responsible for the Nordstream sabotage in Denmark's EEZ.

I wouldn't completely rule out that they were testing boundaries with this strike, although I think the chances are very low indeed.

With that said, Russia will never be weaker and any nuclear threats are a massive bluff. We could just provide air support to the Ukrainians under a triggered article 5 and the Russians would be driven out by Christmas.

If states like Poland were chomping at the bit to make war with Russia, they would most likely have already supplied Ukraine with certain weapons which haven't arrived. This could be a pretext, but they're almost certainly not looking for a pretext, because entering the conflict over the deaths of two people is not deemed to be in their interest. There are other responses they can make, including those which hurt Russia without expanding the war.

The problem is, if there is no response, what is stopping Russia from actually trying to hit something within a NATO country? Two people may not seem like a lot, but if you give an inch a person like Putin will take a mile. Even if they don't try to hit Poland, it is inevitable that the Russian desire to terrorize the Ukrainian population with missiles will lead to another strike on Poland/Slovakia/Hungary/Romania.

[AndyHogan14]

The Kremlin coping and spinning has started. Really interesting how they spread this "Nazi" narrative about Poland too.

https://twitter.com/SamRamani2/status/1592603091274149888

POLAND started World War II? That takes victim blaming to a whole new level. Wow.

[AndyHogan14]

Ukraine is winning the war.  Why should they give up anything?

Ukraine can join NATO if it damn well pleases.  Why should Russia get a say in the foreign affairs of Ukraine?  NATO is a purely defensive alliance and poses no aggressive threat to Russia.  It is not a reasonable ask for Ukraine to create a constitutional amendment saying they will only ever join alliances that Russia allows them to join.

All the Russian-conquered territories are part of Ukraine.  Donbas is part of Ukraine.  Crimea is part of Ukraine.  Russia took all these territories by illegal military force, committed ethnic cleansing and population transfers on a massive scale, and held phony referendums to try and justify their annexation.  None of this deserves to be given an ounce of credibility by the international community.  Ukraine has the absolute right to re-conquer and re-annex all of those territories under the doctrine of self-defense.

It is ridiculous for Russia to make any sort of demands from their current position of weakness but especially for them do demand spoils of war from a war that they have lost.  If Russia wants to end the war, then complete withdrawal and surrender of all illegally-occupied territory and a guarantee of Ukrainian sovereignty are the bare minimal baseline.  What Russia should be negotiating is whether or not sanctions get lifted and whether or not their leaders and soldiers are granted immunity from war crimes, not whether or not they get to keep the territory they stole.

And even if Russia does keep Crimea in the end, it's utterly ridiculous to suggest that Ukraine should completely cut itself off from the Sea of Azov, as well as major port cities such as Meriupol, Melitopol and Berdyansk, by granting Russia a contiguous land-link between Crimea and Russia.  

This. Crimea is the only place Russia holds that Ukraine would have a difficult time retaking. Why should Russia get a inch of soil to territory that Ukraine is likely to retake by next summer?

To be honest, I think Ukraine may try to retake Crimea before some of the pre-February 24 parts of the Donbas. From what I understand, Ukrainian leadership sees Crimea as the lynchpin to the whole Russian operation and if they can retake Crimea, the whole house of cards will come tumbling down. Putin would "fall" out of a window and the chaos that ensues would allow Ukraine to retake the eastern territories.

Edit: And to be perfectly honest, retaking Crimea is **far** more important to Ukraine's national security than Donetsk and Luhansk.

[AndyHogan14]

https://twitter.com/bayraktar_1love/status/1593645321070026754?s=20&t=WUhfYl...

And we still don't have reliable Amtrak service between the Bay Area and Los Angeles and there is *no* service between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Whenever I see stories like this it reminds me how terrible public transit is in this country.

This also reminds me of a tweet that I read a couple of months ago saying that the Kyiv metro was running a slower schedule with trains running every 7-8 minutes while I was waiting 30+ minutes for a train at the Berkeley BART station.

[AndyHogan14]

The current Crimean population "wants to be Russian" because a large chunk of it are literally Russians whom Putin encouraged to settle there, after he had deported the Tatars and other groups who very much did not want to be Russian. In other words, exactly what he's trying to do with Eastern Ukraine now.

Settling the situation there will be a mess no matter what, but using Putin's ethnic cleansing as justification for Crimea remaining Russian is a dangerous logic to uncritically accept.

Crimea was precisely 60% Russian & 24% Ukrainian in the official 2001 free UA Census, a clear and undeniable majority.

Putin does something terrible every single day, so I don't see a need to invent fake narratives to attack him lol

Remember, ethnic Russians ≠ pro-joining Russia. There are plenty of ethnic Russians fighting as part of the Ukrainian Armed Forces as we speak. Anyway, it is my view that vote in 2013-14 would have been close, but it is also important to note that there was no significant political support (in the Crimean or Ukrainian Radas) for separation. In fact, the last Verkhovna Rada of Crimea that was actually elected by the people stated that Crimea was and would remain part of Ukraine following Euromaidan. It was a Russian-backed coup in Simferopol that led to Crimea "declaring independence" and joining Russia.

[AndyHogan14]

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2022-12-02/ukraine-bans-religious-organizations-links-russia?_amp=true

This imo is a complete overreach and should not happen . If any figure in the church is collaborating with Russia then arrest them , but don’t shut down churches as that’s a violation of religious liberty .

 

The problem is that the Moscow Patriarchate is an extension of the Russian state; it really isn't a religious organization but a tool for Moscow to assert control over countries on its periphery. Orthodox services certainly aren't banned, just those taking orders from Kirill and thus, Putin.

[AndyHogan14]

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2022-12-02/ukraine-bans-religious-organizations-links-russia?_amp=true

This imo is a complete overreach and should not happen . If any figure in the church is collaborating with Russia then arrest them , but don’t shut down churches as that’s a violation of religious liberty .

 

The problem is that the Moscow Patriarchate is an extension of the Russian state; it really isn't a religious organization but a tool for Moscow to assert control over countries on its periphery. Orthodox services certainly aren't banned, just those taking orders from Kirill and thus, Putin.

Id just arrest those pastors then not shut down the churches. Shutting houses of worship doesnt seem like a good precedent to create so you can effectively do this by arresting the pastors who work with the Russian state for treason.

I would assume that the buildings will just be transferred over to the Kyiv Patriarchate. All other Russian assets in Ukraine have been seized or nationalized so it makes sense to remove the last Russian assets in the country from the control of Putin. With that said, being that many leaders of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) declared independence from Moscow at the start of the war, they will likely be allowed to continue in union with Kyiv or independently once they are properly vetted.

[AndyHogan14]

Moldava apparently anticipates a Russian invasion next year.

https://twitter.com/IuliiaMendel/status/1604861916022599682

I saw that on Twitter and I couldn't help but laugh. Russia just retreated from the west/right bank of Dnipro, so to get to Moldova they would have to:

• Cross the Dnipro River (where there are no functional bridges) and retake Kherson city.
• Advance through (or around) Mykolaiv city. Something the Russians failed to do at the beginning of the war when they were arguably at their "best."
• Advance through Odesa Oblast to the international border with Moldova. Reminder, the only part of Odesa Oblast that was occupied by the Russians was Snake Island.

I would say it's more likely that Ukraine liberates all of its territory (including Crimea and pre-2/24 Donbas) than Russia getting to the border with Moldova.

[AndyHogan14]

It seems like Zelenskyy may be heading to DC for a visit tomorrow. I think this would be his first trip outside of the country since the war began.

[AndyHogan14]

It is definitely **Ukraine** that refuses to negotiate. </sarcasm>
https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1608208975270404102?s=20&t=-tRwv1...

[AndyHogan14]

Is "reviving the GDR," a way of saying that Russia will invade the former East Germany and take it back? What are its plans for West Berlin?

I suppose they could recreate the old GDR in the former German territory of Königsberg and East Prussia.

[AndyHogan14]

Apparently a couple of articles and rumblings from telegram from Russian intel sources that Ukraine has successfully conscripted the Ukrainian army to the size of 1.3 million and that Ukraine offensive might be towards Crimea which is under defended
https://mobile.twitter.com/secretsqrl123/status/1626246471820484609

I have long said that if Ukraine goes after pre-February 24 territory (if they cut the land bridge of course) it would be Crimea. If the Ukrainians are able to, at the very least, establish a "beach head" on the Crimean Peninsula, that would most likely lead to the downfall of Putin.

[AndyHogan14]

Some of this Moldova stuff going on just seems like fear mongering by Ukraine to justify invading Transnistria in order to take the large ammo pool there.

Sounds like a good idea to me. I wouldn’t even need a pretence, just go in, take it, and relieve Moldova of a gigantic headache.

[AndyHogan14]

Some of this Moldova stuff going on just seems like fear mongering by Ukraine to justify invading Transnistria in order to take the large ammo depot there.

Moldova itself is the one going on about it so the say it’s Ukrainian fear mongering is disingenuous

From a Moldovan standpoint, it makes all the sense in the world to get Ukraine to help them clear their territory (being that they cannot do it themselves).

[AndyHogan14]

https://mobile.twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1628130824267698220

I know it will likely end up being nothing, but this is essentially my response:



I'm sitting here on vacation in Mexico and I'm trying to follow random troop movement near the Ukrainian-Moldovan border. Ha!

[AndyHogan14]

Any “compromise” peace deal would/should be status quo ante bellum. The Ukrainians have a decent enough chance of cutting the land bridge in the coming months, so anything that gives Russia territory beyond the February 24, 2022 lines should be a nonstarter.

[AndyHogan14]

You wanna f**k with us? We will show this miserable country a type of winter that not even the Russians can survive.

I don’t endorse war. But the Kremlin does, so let’s give them what they want.

So we end the world over one drone? Sorry but I like living.

Imagine thinking that the US getting more directly involved would lead to the end of the world. The Muscovites would retreat and then bitch and complain about the evil west (like the cowards that they are).

[AndyHogan14]

Huh...

https://twitter.com/wartranslated/status/1649532657561108481?s=20

So, they are fighting for, um, Lebensraum?

[AndyHogan14]

https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1651250227297366019?s=20

That's essentially what they did with Crimea and the pre-Feb. 2022 Donbas. All of the pro-Ukrainian people fled leaving only the few pro-Russians and those that did not care. All of the empty houses were then filled by Russian squatters.

[AndyHogan14]

I really wish NATO could *actually* get involved. The war would be over in a matter of days (if not hours) with residual mop up duty lasting a week or so. Ha!

[AndyHogan14]

https://twitter.com/juliaioffe/status/1653090547853148179

With that information, it is now clear why Ukraine decided to hold on there as long as they have.

[AndyHogan14]

https://twitter.com/juliaioffe/status/1653090547853148179
https://twitter.com/JenniferJJacobs/status/1653093775944699905

Surely, this reeks of being a typo/misspeaking.

Not necessarily. With months of fighting and the presumably high casualty rate, getting to 100k doesn't seem all too outlandish. Remember, casualties ≠ deaths.