Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[Lord Halifax]

While I am strongly non interventionist, it's important to have friends.

America First is a good idea, America Alone could be catastrophic.

Everything in geopolitics is transactional, though.

What is Europe providing in the relationship? They have stauncher tariffs than we do, support mass migration (that will eventually hit the US), and are collectively intervening more than does the US.

in what world is Europe more pro-immigration than the US?

[Lord Halifax]

I assume it’s just milking concessions from Turkey.

For all the Eurasianist nonsense ont he ground, I assume the Turks remember that the last time we had a war mongering Russian Emperor Constantinople was on the wish list.
Or more seriously that NATO is effectively blocking them from screwing with the Black Sea.

Hungary, or rather Orban scares me though.

How so? Turkey can wield the Montreux Convention all by itself.

Do you think Russia would respect it if Turkey didn’t have NATO at it’s back or do you think they would be demanding ‘renegotiation’.

...I wouldn't bet on Russia in an attempted invasion of Turkey, ESPECIALLY given Russia's lackluster naval strength. Turkey actually has a really impressive and large military, and the land invasion route through the Caucasus (assuming they went through Abkhazia) takes you right into the Pontic Mountains.

Turkey has remarkably defensible geography, especially if we're assuming Romania and Bulgaria don't let a Russian army walk through.

Did I mention the Turkish Air Force has over 200 F-16s? I'm really, really not betting on the Russian Air Force here. (Not to mention over a hundred Bayraktar TB-2 drones) And that Turkey has the second-largest military in NATO at present, behind only the USA? And that Turkey's population of ~85 million is twice that of pre-war Ukraine's and will require twice as much to occupy?

So yeah, I really doubt even in the "Turkey is expelled from NATO" world that Russia wants anything to do with picking that fight.

They could team up with Iran and/or launch an invasion from Syria. It's doubtful that the Kurds would resist a Russian invasion and that lowers the cost of occupation. 

Even assuming the Turkish army isn't also overrated (and their intervention in Syria wasn't exactly impressive) you're assuming it would be a conventional war, but if Turkey isn't allied with the US I see little reason why Russia would show any restraint in a war against a country like Turkey with few useful allies.

It would be much easier for Russia to use chemical weapons, tactical nukes or commit outright genocide (not massacres as in Ukraine, but large scale actual genocide) against Turks than Ukrainians (Slavic people and of interest to the West). Russian atrocities in Ukraine shouldn't make us ignore that they could have gone even further and have shown some degree of restraint, even with regards to "conventional" thermobaric weapons.

Turkey is a country few nations really like (Pakistan, the four Turkic -stans in Central Asia, the Azeris, Albania, Bosnia) and plenty of other nations have a grudge against: Iran, Syria (and to a lesser degree most of the rest of the Arab world), Greece, Serbia, Armenia, Georgia, and they've done their best to alienate various European nations and the US. China prefers Iran over Turkey. Pakistan is the only pro-Turkish country with a sizable military, but is badly positioned to intervene and would have to prioritize its relations with China and Iran over Turkey anyway. How seriously would the world community really react to Russian war crimes in Turkey? 

[Lord Halifax]

https://www.lrt.lt/en/news-in-english/19/1704219/johnson-proposes-alternative-union-with-ukraine-may-include-baltic-states-media

"Johnson proposes alternative union with Ukraine, may include Baltic states – media"

Boris Johnson takes UK out of EU only to join another EU ?

No supra-national/quasi-federalist structures like the EU. Sounds more like a new EFTA with an added security dimension.

[Lord Halifax]

Zelensky's advisor claimed that Russian lost a BTG in Kherson

The media has been downplaying Ukrainian success in Kherson, while overhyping the minor Russians gains in the Donbass. It's hurting morale to make it seem like Ukraine is about to collapse.

Maybe making up for some of the exaggerations the other way, like when they said in the early days of the war there was some ukrainian babushka taking out russian drones with just pickle and tomato jars lol

it was one drone hit by one jar, and it did happen. There have been plenty of exaggerations, but that incident wasn't one of them.

[Lord Halifax]

Zelensky's advisor claimed that Russian lost a BTG in Kherson

The media has been downplaying Ukrainian success in Kherson, while overhyping the minor Russians gains in the Donbass. It's hurting morale to make it seem like Ukraine is about to collapse.

Maybe making up for some of the exaggerations the other way, like when they said in the early days of the war there was some ukrainian babushka taking out russian drones with just pickle and tomato jars lol

it was one drone hit by one jar, and it did happen. There have been plenty of exaggerations, but that incident wasn't one of them.

You would probably believe it if you heard that some ukrainian shot down an iskander with a ak74. Meanwhile, I try to put my pro Russian biases aside when looking at how things unfold. When Mariupol was active, a lot of Russian chatter was that they were capturing nato generals, including one particular Roger Cloutier. That was utter bullsh**t obviously, yet some people still believe it and that russia and america are jointly hiding it and using body doubles etc. Also that moron Kadyrov was running his mouth in like late march talking about how we will have Mariupol wrapped up in a few days, and I was thinking lol, this gonna take weeks. He still says outlandish stuff that some very pro russian boomers believe, like we can take Poland out in 6 days next! Or the worst one yet “pfft we didn’t even want KIEV anyways bro”. Difference is, unlike a lot of pro ukrainians here, I am able to seperate out what I want vs what the reality is.  I would have loved it if Russia took Kiev, which was the aim, but it was a big fat L, and I won’t try and say otherwise.

lots of whataboutery and baseless assumptions, I was solely commenting on that particular incident, saying it was one incidence (since you used plural) and a bad example because it actually happened.

[Lord Halifax]

Zelensky's advisor claimed that Russian lost a BTG in Kherson

The media has been downplaying Ukrainian success in Kherson, while overhyping the minor Russians gains in the Donbass. It's hurting morale to make it seem like Ukraine is about to collapse.

Maybe making up for some of the exaggerations the other way, like when they said in the early days of the war there was some ukrainian babushka taking out russian drones with just pickle and tomato jars lol

it was one drone hit by one jar, and it did happen. There have been plenty of exaggerations, but that incident wasn't one of them.

You would probably believe it if you heard that some ukrainian shot down an iskander with a ak74. Meanwhile, I try to put my pro Russian biases aside when looking at how things unfold. When Mariupol was active, a lot of Russian chatter was that they were capturing nato generals, including one particular Roger Cloutier. That was utter bullsh**t obviously, yet some people still believe it and that russia and america are jointly hiding it and using body doubles etc. Also that moron Kadyrov was running his mouth in like late march talking about how we will have Mariupol wrapped up in a few days, and I was thinking lol, this gonna take weeks. He still says outlandish stuff that some very pro russian boomers believe, like we can take Poland out in 6 days next! Or the worst one yet “pfft we didn’t even want KIEV anyways bro”. Difference is, unlike a lot of pro ukrainians here, I am able to seperate out what I want vs what the reality is.  I would have loved it if Russia took Kiev, which was the aim, but it was a big fat L, and I won’t try and say otherwise.

lots of whataboutery and baseless assumptions, I was solely commenting on that particular incident, saying it was one incidence (since you used plural) and a bad example because it actually happened.

Ok. Well there was this funny thing going around about 6ish weeks ago on ukrop type telegrams saying that overnight in about a 12 hour window, Ukrainian tanks rolled 100 kilometers into Belgorod oblast and surronded and besieged the city. I bet you 100% believed that lol. I’m obviously based, so I don’t believe the excuses and exaggerations that the side I want to win makes, (like other pro russians claiming russia never even meant to take KIEV to begin with), that’s obviously a flat out lie, and Russia took a fat L.

Stop trying to "guess" what ridiculous things you think I may believe, that's pretty clearly trolling and as such against the ToS.

[Lord Halifax]

I don't mind a pro-Russia poster contributing in this thread per se, and at least they are open about it.

If he could quit the trolling, trying to wind people up, and whataboutery it would be okay, but obvious troll is obvious, and this is just too sensitive a topic to allow trolling given how many posters have friends and family members in Ukraine.

[Lord Halifax]

[tweet]

They are prisoners of war.

Is Liz Truss saying that the UK is at war with Russia? I must have missed the declaration of war

No, she is stating the obvious that Ukrainian soldiers captured by the Russians or their proxies are POWs under international law. They were both part of regular Ukrainian units and at least Aiden Aslin is a Ukrainian citizen. Citizenship is not decisive in determining the status of a combatant btw, lots of countries allow foreign nationals to join their military, that doesn't make them "mercenaries".

[Lord Halifax]

What amuses me greatly is people who actually believe there is something like black and white in a war. One side is totally bad, the orcs as they call them and others are peaceful citizens, freedom fighters etc

If that amuses you, you got a sick sense of humor.

Not black and white, but a lot closer to it than 90% of wars. When you got an authoritarian great power starting a war of conquest against a smaller and weaker neighbor they'll of course be viewed as the bad guys, once their soldiers start murdering, raping and looting that impression will be confirmed. A few examples of defenders torturing or killing POWs and other nasty stuff won't change that.

There are undoubtedly some black n' whiters, but mostly people recognize that Ukraine has its flaws. It's more that we think the Ukrainians have been admirably restrained compared to what one would have expected given the Russian atrocities.

[Lord Halifax]

But what about famous Kherson offensive?

HIMARS will help Ukraine no doubt. They will help in killing Russians in which place will come some new Russians. It won't change trajectory of a war. Ukraine had SMERCH systems on the beginning of the war, they have Tochkas still..

Nah, Russia is no longer a country with a nearly infinite supply of young men and mass mobilization is too politically dangerous anyway.

[Lord Halifax]

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/europe/russian-troops-kill-up-to-80-polish-fighters-in-ukraine-moscow/articleshow/92455028.cms

"Russian troops kill 'up to 80' Polish fighters in Ukraine: Moscow"

Russia MoD claims to have killed up to 80 Polish mercenaries as part of a missile strike.  My impression is that the Polish form the biggest contingent of mercenaries on the Ukraine side.

Could you please not use the term "mercenaries" about international volunteers, there is an international definition of what a mercenary is and paid foreign volunteers in a regular army aren't included (if they were the Gurkhas in the British army would also be mercenaries, which would be ridiculous).

[Lord Halifax]

It's not. Only in Mariupol there were at least 1000 Azov fighters. And their influence on government is far greater than it's admitted numbers of personel.

*its

*personnel

Yeah, go with the spelling argument. My english is perfectly fine for someone who isn't english or american.

So what are you.

So what are you then
 - Russian?

Expected that. No, I'm not Russian. I'm European

Most Russians are European.

True that. All of Germans are also Europeans but that doesn't make me a German.

So what are you? Belarusian or Serbian?

[Lord Halifax]

Interesting how people think they know you based on a few posts online.

I don't support war of conquest, I support in principle territorial integrity of any sovereign country. Only problem is in unipolar world one county, USA, gets to decide which countries can gain independence and which don't. So when we are talking about Kosovo unilaterally gaining independence it's ok, but with let's say Catalonia in Spain or DNR in Ukraine not so much.

It's a year 2022 and some people honestly believe in morale in international politics. People really think that countries and their leaders aren't guided by pure self interest for them personally or for their countries. So when Putin decides to stop NATO expansion on their own borders, it's pure evil, yet expansion itself is democracy at work. Because coup in 2014 is democracy probably. And when some people decide they don't want to live in this US "democracy" in Ukraine, it doesn't matter because they have no right for independence.

Breaking news: Putin invaded Ukraine for Russia's and his own interests and USA is doing everything in Ukraine not for the sake of Ukrainian people but for their own interest. And yes, they will fight till the last Ukrainian, because their own wars in the last decades went so horribly wrong.

Upholding the principle that a state can't gain territory by conquest is in the self-interest of most states in the world because it would cause chaos (incl. massive refugee waves) and be incredible destructive to the heavily globalized world economy if we allowed wars of conquest. Even setting aside the moral aspect we're to interdependent and interconnected, and modern weaponry is too destructive.

It's a principle that has mostly held up post-WW2, especially if you exclude the decolonization process which was a one-off and polities that weren't fully sovereign like Tibet and Sikkim, then you're down to a small number of exceptions like Israel gaining territory by winning a defensive war and Turkey invading Cyprus in a situation where the excuse of protecting co-nationals against ethnic cleansing was far more credible than in the Donbass. And of course neither of these border changes are recognized by the vast majority of other states.

It's a myth that Euromaidan was a coup and that it was orchestrated by the US, it was a popular uprising and regardless of how you view it didn't change the legitimacy or independence of the Ukrainian state. All this nonsense about Ukraine being an American "puppet" and that it's a "proxy war" because the Ukrainians get weapons from the West is just BS. Ukraine is a sovereign country fighting for itself. The US is the single most powerful country in the world, but it's not in control of its allies and partners (many things would be different in international politics if the US actually had full control of places like Israel, Saudi-Arabia or the EU countries).

The Donbass secession was not the result of a popular uprising in the region, but instigated and controlled by Russia and with brutal repression of any pro-Ukrainian dissent, it's a tactic Russia has used repeatedly and it completely undermines the legitimacy of the breakaway statelets. Russia has never proposed a referendum based on the pre-2014 population and with the two oblasts controlled by UN troops, if they had they might have a point.

It's problematic that the Spanish and American constitutions offer no legitimate way to secede, but at least those countries have democratic ways to offer a referendum on secession and a free public debate. We don't really know what would happen if e.g. American Samoa wanted to reunite with Samoa (they currently have no appetite for that), but it's not like the US would start killing or force out Samoan nationalists, and they'd have some sympathy among the general public. States wouldn't be allowed to secede since they aren't ethnically or nationally defined (Hawaii is a special case, but the Native Hawaiians are a small minority) and the native nations are all enclaves and too poor to manage on their own, but I don't think it's out of the question for territories to secede if a clear majority wanted to.

Catalonia is deeply divided on secession, if the separatists had a solid 60% majority public opposition to Catalan independence in Spain would likely start to soften and a break would be seen as inevitable. Democracies simply process these things differently. You don't really have any cases in the Western world where the vast majority of the population in a region or minority nation want out of a nation state, but are suppressed by force.

[Lord Halifax]

Entire Lughansk region is now under Russian control. Ukrainians retreated at the end from Lysychansk and surroundings without much of a fight. Their response is to strike Belgorod with Tochkas. They killed 3 people who fled from Kharkiv.

ftfy

pls don't use the Russian names for Ukrainian towns and cities on this forum.

[Lord Halifax]

Entire Lughansk region is now under Russian control. Ukrainians retreated at the end from Lysychansk and surroundings without much of a fight. Their response is to strike Belgorod with Tochkas. They killed 3 people who fled from Kharkiv.

ftfy

pls don't use the Russian names for Ukrainian towns and cities on this forum.

I'll use what I want.

You can forbid maybe someone somewhere from using something but you can't change history that quickly. Literally every single resident of Luhansk oblast is a Russian speaker.

Pls don't be so detached from reality.

It doesn't matter what the locals call it, Ukrainian is the national language of Ukraine and using the Russian form is an unnecessary provocation on a pro-Ukrainian forum. This not a place for Russia lovers and Chetniks so kindly delete your account and go somewhere else.

[Lord Halifax]

To the "both siders":

If this forum had existed during WW2 pro-Nazi and pro-Japanese posts wouldn't have been accepted, we all know that. We can discuss the war and its consequences in a rational manner without tolerating blatantly pro-Russian posters, this is not a normal political topic and shouldn't be treated like one.

[Lord Halifax]

https://exxpress.at/macrons-super-waffen-landen-bei-putin-nicht-bei-selenskyj/

Pro-OVP Austrian magazine reports that Ukrainian officers sold two French Caesar Howitzers  (they cost $3.5 million) to the Russians for 118k EUR each.

That's always a risk when dealing with countries with a significant corruption problem, hopefully those traitors will be executed asap.

EDIT: Assuming it actually happened.

[Lord Halifax]

As helpful as NATO has been, I'm not convinced they would go beyond Ukraine reclaiming its land up to the Feb 24th lines, and Ukraine needs their continued support to wage that kind of operation against Russia. America still won't provide long range missiles to Ukraine, for fear of triggering a major escalation from Russia (whatever that even means at this point). Hard to see how invading Crimea wouldn't be worse from that perspective.

Taking back the Crimean Peninsula would almost surely have to come later in the war (implying Ukraine has nearly pushed Russia out), given how much control Russia has over Southern Ukraine and how much of Ukraine's forces are tied up elsewhere, at which point it's easy to see Russia refusing to concede Crimea no matter what it takes, nuclear weapons included. Actually, as far as nukes go, the perekop isthmus is pretty ideal for halting an invading force, particularly given that Ukraine doesn't have the ability to conduct an amphibious invasion. I don't know if it would ever come to that, but I just can't see Russia giving up Crimea.

Talking about Ukraine taking back some territory is pure delusional at this point. Talking about Crimea while they are losing ground still. And they WILL continue to lose the ground in the East at least.

They are taking back small areas of territory around Kherson even as you typed this.

Another twitter offensive I suppose. In which they took for now maybe 3 unimportant villages. And even that's the question. In the same amount of time they lost two cities in SD and Lisichansk. Only villages around Lysychansk like Belogorovka are probably bigger advancement than all of that Kherson offensive. But if you wish to beleive in that, sure.

Why are you simping so much for a dictatorship?

He's a Serb, they can't help it. It's deeply ingrained in their culture.

[Lord Halifax]

Russia might be able to pump out quite a bit of artillery munitions themselves, but until they figure out a long-term solution for their semiconductor crisis, virtually all their advanced systems are going to be near-irreplaceable. And honestly, this isn't even really just a Russian problem. The semiconductor production industry has long been dominated by Taiwan's TSMC (for the most advanced chips) and foreign sources in general. It's only within the past 5 years that America has seriously made headway in moving a lot of production stateside, and that still isn't a done deal. So America could find itself with its own weapons production crisis if, say, China were to try to reunify annex Taiwan within the next ~5 years. It would be even worse for us because of how advanced our military tech is.

A recent seemingly well-researched article from Reuters claimed Taiwan produces 92% of the most advanced semiconductors and South Korea the remaining 8%, so the US production currently doesn't include the most advanced ones.

[Lord Halifax]

weird anti-globalization nationalist rhetoric that people here keep repeating.

Why do you consider it "weird"?

If the West can't rely on support from "the global South" when a hostile great power attacks and tries to annex a large country bordering the West, then it's only natural what we'll have to reverse as much outsourcing and become as independent of "the global South" as possible.

When reading your posts it's like you're incapable of viewing this conflict from a Western POV. That wars of conquest should be a thing of the past is such a basic element of a ruled based and stable world order that it's not something we can compromise on, and so many countries around the world being so cynical about this and only trying to exploit the situation for their own benefit has ofc been a major disappointment to Western countries, and something that'll influence the relationship between the West and "the rest" going forward.

The Nuremberg Tribunal stated that "war is essentially an evil thing. Its consequences are not confined to the belligerent states alone, but affect the whole world. To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." 

It's not some trivial matter, but the very foundation of the post-WW2 international order, and just because Russia can use its veto right to keep the UN Security Council from intervening doesn't mean it's not a clear violation of the UN Charter. So there is naturally a disappointment that major stakeholders in the international community like India and Brazil see it as "the West's problem". If Russia gets away with annexing big parts of Ukraine after conquering it that's the end of the rule based world order and a return to unlimited great power competition which is going to have negative consequences for everyone given that great power wars with modern destructive capabilities and in such a highly complex, technologically advanced and interdependent world economy are incredibly dangerous and destructive. So letting Russia win isn't really an option, the consequences are just too scary, even scarier than the worst case scenario in the current conflict.

From our POV the whole "proxy war" narrative is incredible disingenuous and nonsensical (Ukraine is fighting to preserve their independence, not for America's interests), and the idea that Europeans are "colonies" or "pawns" of the US with no agency is deeply offensive to them. It's like you're completely blind to all this, and just think your worldview is objectively true. Most Westerners understand the criticism of Western hypocrisy (even if we think interventions to prevent genocide or ethnic cleansing like Libya, Kurdistan and Kosovo are in a different category), but despise the callousness of considering Russia's attempt at annexing and eradicating its neighbor as none of our business because it's far away and doesn't affect us directly.

[Lord Halifax]

https://nationalinterest.org/feature/no-matter-who-wins-ukraine-america-has-already-lost-204288

"No Matter Who Wins Ukraine, America Has Already Lost"

"Regardless of who wins the Ukrainian war, the United States will be the strategic loser. Russia will build closer relations with China and other countries on the Eurasian continent, including India, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf states. It will turn irrevocably away from European democracies and Washington. Just as President Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger played the “China card” to isolate the Soviet Union during the Cold War, presidents Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping will play their cards in a bid to contain U.S. global leadership."

A USA think tank breaks ranks with the wisdom of the USA getting involved in the Russia-Ukraine conflict

This so-called think tank is a bunch of Trump sycophants and Kremlin fellators with a Russian born CEO and Kissinger on the board of directors. It's the former Nixon Center that the Nixon family broke ties with because they attacked McCain for daring to criticize Russia's invasion of Georgia during his presidential campaign.

[Lord Halifax]

Overall it does not seem like a good idea for Ukraine to attack like this when they are weaker in terms of air control and artillery power.  In such a situation Ukraine should want to Russians to attack them in fortified positions where Russian air power and artillery advantages are mitigated versus trying to advance in the open.

that logic doesn't really apply when the Russians are cut off on the west side of the Dnieper.

[Lord Halifax]

If they stop the offensive, it’s a big win for Russia.  If they continue, they risk losing several thousand additional troops with slim odds of success (whatever that looks like). 

it's not a big win if Russia is cut off on the west side of Dnipro, the decisive factor is how long Russia remains able to resupply its forces. 

"Success" would be getting close enough to Kherson that an uprising within the city could succeed.

[Lord Halifax]

It's fine to repost it here given how far it's already reached, but this footage shouldn't be available. OPSEC concerns aside, whoever released it did too little to censor the identities of the celebrating civilians in what is a very fluid situation. If Russian troops come back tomorrow (or at any point in the near future), these guys will be in danger.

I seriously doubt that, maybe in the Donbass, but this is from Kharkiv oblast where the Russians are well aware the locals identify as Ukrainians.

[Lord Halifax]

I seriously doubt that, maybe in the Donbass, but this is from Kharkiv oblast where the Russians are well aware the locals identify as Ukrainians.

It’s a minority, but there’s quite a lot of ethnic Russians and Russian speakers in eastern Kharkiv oblast (and a majority in some villages). In the 2019 elections it was the best area for the pro-Russian opposition outside the Donbass/southern Odessa oblast. It’s obviously difficult to accurately work out how much support the Russians have amongst occupied civilians, but I would imagine it’s higher there than the likes of Kherson.

I'd be very reluctant to translate support of "pro-Russian" parties to Russian national identity or support for annexation by Russia outside of the Donbass.