Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

This new stuff feels different; this is about solidifying public opinion within Russia to support an incursion, rather than making external threats. I think you'd only do this if you were actually going to pull the trigger and do something, because Putin would look weak otherwise. Either he's going in or at the very least feels close to a major diplomatic concession that could be sold as a victory.

Yeah, as I said earlier today, Putin raised the stakes today. Yesterday he complained that West didn't push Ze to implement Minsk, and today he pulled the first trigger. I think, Minsk Agreement (perhaps, on drugs) is the least he can accept right now.

With that said, I still extremely doubtful about this Kiev thing, Biden keeps talking about. It doesn't help Ukraine, either.

https://twitter.com/nytimesworld/status/1494752580194418705
How Putin Has Already Weakened Ukraine’s Economy
Flights have been canceled, commercial shipping is threatened, and people fear an invasion is not far off.

Without outright declaring war or taking action that would trigger the harsh sanctions promised by the West, Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, has once again succeeded in destabilizing Ukraine and making clear that Russia could wreck the country’s economy. The evacuation announced last week of American, British and Canadian citizens has led to panic. Several international airlines have stopped flights into the country. Russian naval exercises in the Black Sea have exposed the vulnerability of Ukraine’s critical ports for commercial shipping.

The anxiety coursing through Kyiv is exactly what Mr. Putin hopes to achieve, according to Pavlo Kukhta, an adviser to Ukraine’s minister of energy. “What they want to do is the equivalent of winning the war without firing a single bullet, by causing massive panic here,” Mr. Kukhta said.

Timofiy Mylovanov, president of the Kyiv School of Economics and a former minister of economic development, said his institution has estimated that the crisis has already cost Ukraine “several billion dollars,” just in the past few weeks. War or a long siege would only worsen the situation.

“You either get an invasion or your economy hurts,” he said.

The first major blow came Monday when two Ukrainian airlines said they were unable to acquire insurance for their flights, forcing Ukraine’s government to create a $592 million insurance fund to keep planes flying. On Feb. 11, London-based insurers had warned aviation companies that they would be unable to insure flights to Ukraine or those flying above its airspace. Malaysia Airlines, which had a plane shot down above territory controlled by pro-Moscow rebels in 2014, responded by saying it would halt flights. Germany’s Lufthansa said it was considering a suspension.

On Tuesday, Ukraine was subjected to a massive cyberattack, as hackers flooded the servers hosting websites until the servers became overloaded and shut down. Officials blamed Russia, though the Kremlin denied involvement. Still, Ukraine officials said it was the largest distributed denial-of-service attack in the country’s history and targeted government ministries and state banks.

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

First "casualties":

https://twitter.com/UkrWarReport/status/1494791327724281873

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

This new stuff feels different; this is about solidifying public opinion within Russia to support an incursion, rather than making external threats. I think you'd only do this if you were actually going to pull the trigger and do something, because Putin would look weak otherwise. Either he's going in or at the very least feels close to a major diplomatic concession that could be sold as a victory.

Yeah, as I said earlier today, Putin raised the stakes today. Yesterday he complained that West didn't push Ze to implement Minsk, and today he pulled the first trigger. I think, Minsk Agreement (perhaps, on drugs) is the least he can accept right now.

With that said, I still extremely doubtful about this Kiev thing, Biden keeps talking about. It doesn't help Ukraine, either.

Russian Bear,

What do average Russians think about all this, from your perspective?  Do they find the reports from Russian media credible, and would a war be popular?

Well, it's difficult to speak for an average Russian. Today's reports about Donbass? Probably, not so credible, but a sizable minority probably believes that. War? Very unpopular. The reason why I don't believe Putin will invade Ukraine and take Kiev is exactly because such war would be extremely unpopular and would probably mean the end of Putin. Officially annexing Donbass is probably doable and relatively uncontroversial, especially if Putin rebuilds that. But the problem then that harsh sanctions would probably come and make it much less popular so IDK even about that. Recognizing Donbass independent and more actively controlling it is imo most likely scenario.

With that said anti-NATO sentiments are *very* strong among Russians. So I can see some quick fights with Ukrainian army or something similar in the name of making NATO impossible? But taking Kiev (or other big cities) sounds really really unbelievable. Nobody really believes something like this can happen.

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

I will do whatever is needed to halt the aggressors in their bloody tracks.

Buy ticket to Ukraine and fight for their freedom!

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

First "casualties":

https://twitter.com/UkrWarReport/status/1494791327724281873

What exactly sparked this?

Well, I don't know all the details (Andriy would be more helpful). But the guy who was beaten has very pro-Russian views and has been called for fifth column together with other guy Muraev (whom per UK/US intel Putin would install after taking Kiev) earlier on this debate show. He's against NATO and, I believe, he blamed current situation mostly on Poroshenko's team and didn't want to put much blame on Putin, and that's why he got beaten.

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

I will do whatever is needed to halt the aggressors in their bloody tracks.

Buy ticket to Ukraine and fight for their freedom!

If the US fights back I won’t need to buy the ticket, still gotta save that money for what remains of my family!

Don't you understand?

If the US formally goes to war with Russia, there won't be any remains of anyone's families.

Oh well then.

You seem to not fully grasp the idea of what happens if Russia and the US go to war. The end result will be a global thermonuclear war that will destroy the majority of the world and leave the remainder with little to no future.

He trolls and is bad at it.

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

I will do whatever is needed to halt the aggressors in their bloody tracks.

Buy ticket to Ukraine and fight for their freedom!

If the US fights back I won’t need to buy the ticket, still gotta save that money for what remains of my family!

Don't you understand?

If the US formally goes to war with Russia, there won't be any remains of anyone's families.

Oh well then.

You seem to not fully grasp the idea of what happens if Russia and the US go to war. The end result will be a global thermonuclear war that will destroy the majority of the world and leave the remainder with little to no future.

He trolls and is bad at it.

Thanks for the heads up.

I just don't understand how anyone could feasibly cheer for nuclear war. The survivors of it will envy those who died.

Yeah, but on that matter Biden has been very restrained and clear. He mentions almost every speech that he won't send any soldier to Ukraine even for evacuating Americans exactly, because he doesn't want any possibility to arise when Russians and Americans attack each other.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/biden-warns-americans-leave-ukraine-russia-troops-world-war-rcna15781

"American citizens should leave now," Biden said in an interview with NBC News anchor Lester Holt.

“It’s not like we’re dealing with a terrorist organization. We’re dealing with one of the largest armies in the world. It’s a very different situation, and things could go crazy quickly,” he said.

Holt asked Biden what scenario could prompt him to send troops to rescue Americans fleeing the country. Biden replied: “There’s not. That's a world war when Americans and Russia start shooting at one another.”

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

https://twitter.com/leonidragozin/status/1495556662022844420


Haha, yeah 

And now we'll likely get a summit. Helsinki? Yalta?

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

Macron Proposed Putin-Biden Summit, Accepted by Both Sides: AFP

Macron’s really been going for it.

He’s either a powerhouse of diplomacy, or a useful idiot for Putin - whose fallen into an ego trap, and the situation is so muddy I have no idea which.

With Russia you always have to be wary that it’s the latter, but boy, if he has found a way to keep Russia tanks out of Ukraine, even for one week more, he’s doing materially good work.

Either way, he’s gone up a bit in my estimations this week.

If Macron is, indeed, just a useful idiot for Putin, and if Biden doesn't understand that, doesn't it make Biden Putin's useful idiot, too?

With Russia you always have to be wary that it’s the latter, but boy, if he has found a way to keep Russia tanks out of Ukraine, even for one week more, he’s doing materially good work.

Hasn't it been pretty clear for now, that Putin doesn't have a hurry? If he wanted to invade no matter what, he'd already done it. It's pretty clear imo, that he still thinks, he might get some concessions either out of Ukraine or West.

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

https://twitter.com/leonidragozin/status/1495556662022844420

It is not a  terrible strategy if USA's plan is one of delay.  Namely if the Russian invasion can be delayed until March then the coming of rasputitsa would mean that it would be May at the earliest until Russian can invade again.  On the flip side delay tends to work against Ukraine as the longer this status quo lasts the worst its economic crisis gets worse.

Well, I (and many others) just really doubt that "exposing" true date would actually prevent Putin from invading.


Moreover, the "rasputitsa" has already started like 1-3 weeks ago? https://weather.com/weather/tenday/l/Kyiv+Kiev+Ukraine?canonicalCityId=0b66fcc8c4490e8b96bcf6af087a80df429e7ce442645cf1a27546703dbd551a

and I doubt it really mattered in first place to be honest.

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-joe-biden-moscow-kyiv-environment-and-nature-3aa7f3a45ceb57ba9ef1faa1c5f17ed8
In Russia’s Ukraine plans, how much does the mud matter?

And it’s yet another reason why any Russian decision to invade Ukraine is likely to depend very little upon fears that a spring thaw will hinder tanks from crossing boggy ground. Russia’s military has, in addition to tanks and other armored vehicles that are well equipped for mud, a range of fighter jets and missiles that are the hallmarks of any modern military.

U.S. President Joe Biden has said that Russia is essentially in position for an invasion of Ukraine “assuming that the ground is frozen above Kyiv,” the Ukrainian capital that is only 75 kilometers (47 miles) from the border of Belarus, a key Russian ally. It’s not the first time an American official has invoked Russia’s need for frozen ground to stage an invasion.

But analysts trying to figure out how Russia could invade say any assault would start with air and missile strikes, likely targeting Ukrainian military sites.

“If (Russian President Vladimir) Putin agrees to an invasion, then it won’t be tanks or ships in the vanguard, but rather aircraft and missile forces. The first targets for them will be air defense systems and the missile defense force, command posts, critical infrastructure, after which the advantage of Russian forces in the air and upper hand on land and sea are guaranteed,” said Mykola Sunhurovskyi, a military analyst at the Kyiv-based Razumkov Center think tank.

And if there is a KVN-battle (so KVN is not about that), we'll send Lavrov.

The Kremlin, which has denied having any Ukraine invasion plans, has scoffed at an argument that it wants to see the ground frozen to launch an attack on Ukraine. Ukrainian officials agree that frozen ground or mud isn’t an issue.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov pointed at the argument to taunt British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss following their icy talks in Moscow on Thursday.

“They say that Russia is waiting for the ground to freeze like a stone so that tanks could easily roll into Ukrainian territory,” Lavrov told reporters. “The ground was like that with our British colleagues, with numerous facts we cited bouncing off them.”

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

I'm not a military expert either, but it's what the military experts I've been reading have said and it makes intuitive sense: soldiers camping out on frozen fields away from their bases for weeks or months on end will mean lower morale, more disruption to training and greater strain on maintaining equipment. Of course it's not physically impossible for Russia to keep troops forward deployed in this state for a long time, but not using them when their combat effectiveness is declining it would be a signal to other countries that Russia didn't decide to attack when it was optimal, the threat of force is becoming less credible, and so they will be less likely to give concessions.

I think an optimal strategy of tension would have been a lower number of troops mostly in their permanent bases with the main threatening movement being that of equipment with skeleton crews (so what we saw in late Jan or with the Zapad 2021 exercise last year). That I think would be enough of a coercive threat to Ukraine and more sustainable over a period of months, and you could ratchet it quickly by moving in personnel if needed. Rn we're so far past that point.

Anyway as you know I have problems with Russia's negotiating strategy more broadly if it really is trying to win concessions. I don't think the "trying to extract diplomatic wins" interpretation of e.g. the draft treaty proposals or Putin's discussions with Macron makes any sense at all.

Well, I believe a large share (40-60 thousands) are indeed troops in or near their permanent bases.

The build-up took 3 months, why can't Russia wait another couple of months. They can rotate troops. They can lower amount to raise again next fall for example. All of it would (at least in theory) cause a permanent exodus of businesses and brain drain.

Russia can add cyber attacks, which arguably will cause much softer sanctions.
Russia can recognize Donbas independent.
Russia can officially annex Donbas.


I mean, there are arguably a lot of bad, yet very *plausible* scenarios that potentially can force them into giving concessions. Not necessary will it work, but pretending there are no other [more] realistic scenarios rather then "invasion in next couple of day or bust" is well just pretending.


Also, giving that summit happens (we'll probably find it out soon enough?), it means at least a week with no war.

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

US equity futures which had surged on French news of a possible Biden-Putin summit last night has now fallen back down to levels before that news broke.

Probably, because :

A Biden administration official told the Financial Times the format and timing of a possible Biden-Putin summit remained “to be determined” and it was “all completely notional”. 

The Kremlin on Monday then said there were “no concrete plans” for such a meeting, but did not rule out the option.

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

https://twitter.com/noahbarkin/status/1494999291802312708

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

https://twitter.com/C_Barraud/status/1495725849890463744
https://twitter.com/NeilPHauer/status/1495726123686191106
https://twitter.com/C_Barraud/status/1495743787489972228
🥴

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

I honestly don't understand the Ukrainian strategy at all: they're not well-prepared for a war they have a pretty good idea is coming and has been telegraphed for 3 months, they seem to want this war for their nation's defense to be fought by other state's militaries, been given aid by other countries for their own troops to use but been told repeatedly other country's troops will not enter Ukraine to fight the Russians for them, yet want harsh punitive measures on Russia now that would just help the war that has a marginal chance of not occurring to even more certainly take place since the Russians would have less to lose. This is suicide.

The best thing I can come up with is Zelensky and his aids have written off eastern Ukraine, written off Crimea (I don't know if they've written off Kiev or not, we may see the capital move west), they know they'll lose a war, but they won't give up anything diplomatically to serve the broader longer-term purpose of NATO membership/EU membership for whatever Ukrainian remnant exists, and after the war use the victim card to say "NATO and Europe did not help us to the degree necessary and thousands of Ukrainians died because of your inaction" to shame their way into these alliances. Is that playing games with the lives of your citizens? Yes. I'm fully expecting Zelensky to blame the U.S. if war occurs and Ukraine loses, blaming America for all your country's problems is a global sport after all and plays well at home.

Basically:

• they think that Putin blinks
• even if Putin doesn't blink, whatever he'll do is better than caving and/or implementing Minsk or what not.

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

Macron Proposed Putin-Biden Summit, Accepted by Both Sides: AFP

Apparently, Biden asked Macron to?

https://twitter.com/LeSommierRgis/status/1495741233544708098


https://www.reuters.com/world/biden-asked-macron-make-offer-putin-biden-summit-putin-french-official-2022-02-21/
Biden asked Macron to make offer of Putin-Biden summit to Putin -French official

PARIS, Feb 21 (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden had asked French President Emmanuel Macron to make the offer of a summit between Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin to Putin, said an official from the French Presidency.

"We're slowly changing the course of things. We're creating a diplomatic perspective the Kremlin accepts," said the French presidential adviser.

"He is a facilitator," added the French presidential adviser, commenting on Macron's role.

Or is it a new development?

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

Wtf? WH doubles down, if not triples...

https://twitter.com/NatashaBertrand/status/1495738013963649029

Spoiler alert! Click Show to show the content.

Show

https://twitter.com/GMA/status/1495734868654837761
https://twitter.com/John_Hudson/status/1495591015553679361

The letter says the Russian military’s targets would include Russian and Belarusian dissidents in exile in Ukraine, journalists and anti-corruption activists, and “vulnerable populations such as religious and ethnic minorities and LGBTQI+ persons.”

The letter alleges that Moscow’s post-invasion planning would involve torture, forced disappearances and “widespread human suffering.” It does not describe the nature of the intelligence that undergirds its assessment.

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

https://twitter.com/maxseddon/status/1495755190863020036

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/russian-banks-imported-5-billion-foreign-cash-december-acra-estimates-2022-02-21/
Russian banks imported $5 billion in foreign cash in December -ACRA estimates

MOSCOW, Feb 21 (Reuters) - Russian ratings agency ACRA estimates that the country's banks imported $5 billion worth of banknotes in foreign currencies in December, up from $2.65 billion a year before, in a pre-emptive step in case of sanctions creating increased demand.

👀

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

Wouldn't be surprised if Putin recognize Donbass independent today.


Says again (he always talks about it) that Kiev doesn't want to implement Minsk. Mentions today's DNR/LNR recognition request.

It's now send live at least on Russian main TV channel.
Putin's speech (LIVE) with translation:

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

Wouldn't be surprised if Putin recognize Donbass independent today.

Russian equities down 15% on this news

Yeah. And Putin hasn't officially done it yet 🙉🙈🙊.

Though, probably 95% he will. Unless Macron calls him right now...

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

Wouldn't be surprised if Putin recognize Donbass independent today.

Russian equities down 15% on this news

Yeah. And Putin hasn't officially done it yet 🙉🙈🙊.

Though, probably 95% he will. Unless Macron calls him right now...

Or not. Some "advisers" has said, it might be used as ultimatum and give Biden 2-3 days.


Some guy got so stressed, he said, he wants to take DNR/LNR into Russia Federation  Putin corrected him, that nobody is talking about that now.

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

"The decision will be made today" Putin ends national security council meeting with...

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

Some guy got so stressed, he said, he wants to take DNR/LNR into Russia Federation  Putin corrected him, that nobody is talking about that now.

It was Naryshkin, the head of  Foreign Intelligence Service, LMAO. He was sh*tting his pants, it seemed.

https://twitter.com/SimonOstrovsky/status/1495792765279551488

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

https://twitter.com/ZelenskyyUa/status/1495816536853987334