Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[StateBoiler]

Is excluding Russia from the ESC the correct decision to make? In my opinion it is.

Is it news that relates to the ongoing war agaínst Ukraine? Yes, it is.

Is this thread there we discuss and report events related to the ongoing against Ukraine? Yes, it is.

None of that changes the fact it's all pointless meaningless bullsh**t as it relates to the conduct and outcome of the conflict in Ukraine.

People in the West have gotten so addicted to virtue signalling bullsh*t they think that actually accomplishes something. You want to help Ukraine? You know what to do and where to go. Everything else besides that point does not matter.

[StateBoiler]

Is excluding Russia from the ESC the correct decision to make? In my opinion it is.

Is it news that relates to the ongoing war agaínst Ukraine? Yes, it is.

Is this thread there we discuss and report events related to the ongoing against Ukraine? Yes, it is.

None of that changes the fact it's all pointless meaningless bullsh**t as it relates to the conduct and outcome of the conflict in Ukraine.

As Torrain pointed out, it creates - in conjunction with many other, similar measures that have been or will be taken - a clear and coherent message to the Russian people.

And you and him seriously believe that those people are reading this thread, and that the items that are going to send them over the edge from mildly being uninterested to seeing the wrong in this invasion for Russia is the F1 Grand Prix got cancelled and they were kicked out of a song contest? I can hook you up to a lie detector, and that's what you're going to tell me you believe?

Meanwhile no one has commented on what the f#ck actually is going on in this thread on the ground in Ukraine - which is all that matters.

[StateBoiler]

Putin doesn't want NATO Troops so close to his border, views it as Security Threat!

If Putin dares to do anything against Finland, NATO will attack nonetheless, in my view. Finland is a EU member, thus, if Russia attacks Finland, it's invading the EU and there's a cooperation treaty between NATO and the EU, so a military response to it would most likely happen.

I don't see EU moving without the U.S. France and Germany literally admitted in the last 48 hours their militaries are horrifically unprepared for an intense conflict.

If I'm Ukraine, and I see NATO come to the defense of Finland when they wouldn't come to the defense of me, I'm pissed.

I don't see Russia going into Finland, but a lot of people didn't see Russia going into Ukraine either (in spite of forces being stationed on the border for 3 months).

[StateBoiler]

Putin doesn't want NATO Troops so close to his border, views it as Security Threat!

If Putin dares to do anything against Finland, NATO will attack nonetheless, in my view. Finland is a EU member, thus, if Russia attacks Finland, it's invading the EU and there's a cooperation treaty between NATO and the EU, so a military response to it would most likely happen.

I don't see EU moving without the U.S. France and Germany literally admitted in the last 48 hours their militaries are horrifically unprepared for an intense conflict.

If I'm Ukraine, and I see NATO come to the defense of Finland when they wouldn't come to the defense of me, I'm pissed.

I don't see Russia going into Finland, but a lot of people didn't see Russia going into Ukraine either (in spite of forces being stationed on the border for 3 months).

The chances of this going hot were underestimated precisely because people didn't like the thought of war to begin with. They wanted to comfortably retreat to "oh, this is mostly a bluff" or some other explanation besides "yes, Putin intends to send his troops into Ukraine".
It is probably most often the case the risk of hot conflict is overestimated; this is one of the times when the opposite is true.

To dumb down this whole conflict it's:

[Russia put troops all around Ukrainian border]
Ukraine: "What are you doing?"
Russia: "Give us these security guarantees. You're not living up to Minsk."
Ukraine: "No! West, step in here, we're going to do nothing for the next 3 months except berate you on how you're not properly supporting us."
Russia: "Okay. Give us these security guarantees on Ukraine."
West: "That's too much. We will not do it. Come back when you're being realistic."
Russia: "We have forces situated all around Ukraine."
West: "You're not going to invade. You're bluffing."
[Russia invades]
West: "What the hell?!?"

Except...this is pretty extreme for Putin's traditional playbook.

Well, nothing happened to Russia from Georgia 2008. Nothing happened to Russia from Crimea 2014. Nothing happened to Russia from the continuing tit-for-tat ops in Donbass. Putin probably thought his win streak would continue. This war was in part created from the people in charge during those times being weak in the rebuttal. Props to Biden on putting his feet in the ground and giving up nothing diplomatically, although giving up nothing diplomatically does mean either Putin invades or does wholesale withdrawal in a humiliating defeat for him. I think the West and Ukraine didn't believe he'd invade until very late in the game. It's one of the criticisms from history from an academic perspective is assuming everyone operating is a rational actor that thinks similarly. I'll admit watching the news last night it kind of made me think of Iraq. Bush and his staff all had clear plans on what they were going to do and they ran into much less resistance than what the Ukrainians provided. It provided me a perspective on what an outsider might've thought of it at the time.

To that point, there's a great Latvian-based podcast called the Eastern Border that mostly focuses on Soviet/Russian history and the guy put up an emergency show yesterday after hostilities started. He said the deep feeling he felt in his stomach made him realize what Americans must've felt after 9/11.

[StateBoiler]

Putin doesn't want NATO Troops so close to his border, views it as Security Threat!

If Putin dares to do anything against Finland, NATO will attack nonetheless, in my view. Finland is a EU member, thus, if Russia attacks Finland, it's invading the EU and there's a cooperation treaty between NATO and the EU, so a military response to it would most likely happen.

I don't see EU moving without the U.S. France and Germany literally admitted in the last 48 hours their militaries are horrifically unprepared for an intense conflict.

If I'm Ukraine, and I see NATO come to the defense of Finland when they wouldn't come to the defense of me, I'm pissed.

I don't see Russia going into Finland, but a lot of people didn't see Russia going into Ukraine either (in spite of forces being stationed on the border for 3 months).

The chances of this going hot were underestimated precisely because people didn't like the thought of war to begin with. They wanted to comfortably retreat to "oh, this is mostly a bluff" or some other explanation besides "yes, Putin intends to send his troops into Ukraine".
It is probably most often the case the risk of hot conflict is overestimated; this is one of the times when the opposite is true.

To dumb down this whole conflict it's:

[Russia put troops all around Ukrainian border]
Ukraine: "What are you doing?"
Russia: "Give us these security guarantees. You're not living up to Minsk."
Ukraine: "No! West, step in here, we're going to do nothing for the next 3 months except berate you on how you're not properly supporting us."
Russia: "Okay. Give us these security guarantees on Ukraine."
West: "That's too much. We will not do it. Come back when you're being realistic."
Russia: "We have forces situated all around Ukraine."
West: "You're not going to invade. You're bluffing."
[Russia invades]
West: "What the hell?!?"

JFC, this is the exact opposite of what happened

Russian proxies never implemented Minsk protocols and Ukraine did as much as they could with uniformed Russian troops regularly shooting at them, the ‘security guarantees’ amounted to completely disarming Ukraine so that Russia could invade it, the ‘security guarantees’ they asked for from the West was the complete abandonment of Eastern Europe. And the regularly monitored and reported on troop movements and predicted the Russian invasion to the date. The only people that thought they were bluffing were the Germans for some damn reason.

Don’t your desire to be clever cloud your judgement, that way lies Tucker Carlson.

I didn't say Russia was in the right. I was dumbing down their argument.

[StateBoiler]

Also, my suspicions on Modi's allegiances are basically verified. It's not like its without precedent, the Soviet Indian ties were always there, but this should show to Atlas and American foreign policy analysts that there is more to a country's allegiances than whether they support Xi Jinping or not.

You do realise that Indo-Russian weapons cooperation is implicitly directed to striking (among others) China?

In the past, yes.

China is literally building fake villages near Bhutan and the northeast of India to try to claim contested territory. The conflict is very much still real there.

The two countries have had border skirmishes since 2020 high up in the Himalayas that's resulted in handfuls of deaths both sides. It's probably the next most sketchy thing in world security after this Russian conflict and Covid.

[StateBoiler]

Putin doesn't want NATO Troops so close to his border, views it as Security Threat!

If Putin dares to do anything against Finland, NATO will attack nonetheless, in my view. Finland is a EU member, thus, if Russia attacks Finland, it's invading the EU and there's a cooperation treaty between NATO and the EU, so a military response to it would most likely happen.

I don't see EU moving without the U.S. France and Germany literally admitted in the last 48 hours their militaries are horrifically unprepared for an intense conflict.

If I'm Ukraine, and I see NATO come to the defense of Finland when they wouldn't come to the defense of me, I'm pissed.

I don't see Russia going into Finland, but a lot of people didn't see Russia going into Ukraine either (in spite of forces being stationed on the border for 3 months).

The chances of this going hot were underestimated precisely because people didn't like the thought of war to begin with. They wanted to comfortably retreat to "oh, this is mostly a bluff" or some other explanation besides "yes, Putin intends to send his troops into Ukraine".
It is probably most often the case the risk of hot conflict is overestimated; this is one of the times when the opposite is true.

To dumb down this whole conflict it's:

[Russia put troops all around Ukrainian border]
Ukraine: "What are you doing?"
Russia: "Give us these security guarantees. You're not living up to Minsk."
Ukraine: "No! West, step in here, we're going to do nothing for the next 3 months except berate you on how you're not properly supporting us."
Russia: "Okay. Give us these security guarantees on Ukraine."
West: "That's too much. We will not do it. Come back when you're being realistic."
Russia: "We have forces situated all around Ukraine."
West: "You're not going to invade. You're bluffing."
[Russia invades]
West: "What the hell?!?"

You can take your Russian propaganda and shove it, Comrade

Some people are just dumb.

If you actually are Ukrainian - it's hard to tell because most people on this forum lie about where they're from - I'm sorry, dude. Best of luck to you.