Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

Russian born (he now has dual Russian/American citizenship) National Hockey League star Alexander Ovetchkin, who's already one of the greatest of all time and has always publicly shown support for Putin said "Please, no more war" last night.

""Well, he's my president. But, how I said, I'm not in politics. I'm an athlete," Ochevkin replied. "How I said, hope everything's going to be done soon. It's a hard situation right now for both sides. Everything, like how I said, everything I hope is going to be end, and I'm not in control of situation.""

""Please, no more war," he urged. "Doesn't matter who's in the war. Russia. Ukraine. Different countries. I think we live in a world like we have to live in peace and a great world.""

https://twitter.com/Sportsnet/status/1497307285067997184?s=20&t=joCt93LwSCDM...
https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/25/sport/ovechkin-nhl-war/index.html

Generic war is and seems to be the safe take if you are a Russian celebrity. Actually outright condemning Putin would put you in a bad place back home.

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

The ROC media is talking about, ironically, going through a PRC payment messaging system, for trade with Russia in case SWIFT takes Russia offline.

ROC gets that they are China’s Ukraine right?

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

Been thinking about the fact that Russia is holding so much of their army back for no apparent reason.  The only thing that makes sense to me is that logistically they wouldn't be able to handle it.  We've seen reports of their issues in Belarus, and reports of Russian soldiers raiding homes for food and clothing.

See also, this:
https://twitter.com/Liveuamap/status/1497485623225200640

Soldiers say they are out of gas. Driver offers to tow them back to russia. Everyone laughs. Russian soldiers ask for news on how they are doing in war. Driver tell them that Ukraine is winning, russians are surrendering and impliest that they should too.

This is friendlier than some traffic stops in the US. They obviously don't want to be there, this isn't their war.

This morale is shockingly low. Like this is infinitely worse than Vietnam.

Imagine if Vietnam had been in Canada instead of Southeast Asia. That’s probably how your average Russian conscript sees this.

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

Would it be legal for an American to go to Ukraine and fight? I heard Zelensky is providing arms to those who go to Ukraine to fight, I just want to know legality.

U.S. , 163 U.S. 632 (1896), the Supreme Court endorsed a lower court ruling that it was not a crime under U.S. law for an individual to go abroad for the purpose of enlisting in a foreign army

Thank you! I’ll spend Spring Break (week after this) with my mother and discuss this, in the mean time I can probably plan travel for a city in Poland and then take transit to get to the border, but I have time to plan.

Do note, however, that if one accepts a promotion to serve as an officer in a foreign military, then they'll have implicitly consented to a relinquishing of their American citizenship, which the Court ruled in Afroyim v. Rusk (1967) as constituting legitimate constitutional grounds to involuntarily strip an American citizen of their citizenship under the 14th Amendment.

ALSO note: I am NOT a lawyer & what I have written does NOT in any way constitute legitimate legal advice, as it's meant for purely explanatory purposes only; seriously, guy, pls don't go get yourself killed based on what a rando netizen said.

…oh yikes, I do not want to lose my citizenship in the case I somehow survive, but maybe a paramilitary wouldn’t count as a foreign military? I could always talk to legal professionals first, I want to know the full consequences of what I am doing before I go.
As for dying, yeah I don’t want to die, but we all do have to die eventually. I’d rather go out for a good cause than of old age.

I wouldn’t do it in any case, an American found in Ukrainian uniform would cause an international incident.

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

https://twitter.com/Billbrowder/status/1497568972652302342?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7...

Jesus I hope this is bluster

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

Idk how accurate this is

https://mobile.twitter.com/globalismstan/status/1497663038232530944

That's if you uncritically believe Ukrainian estimates of Russian fatalities, which there's no good reason to this early in the war. If those estimates were accurate, Ukraine would be inflicting casualties at a 10:1 ratio, which would mean Russia was not advancing as fast as they are most likely.

Even with overcounting, the numbers we are seeing is killed and captured. Figure conservatively 2-1 wounded to dead (and that would be a very bad rate), and even half that is a massive causality rate.

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

It's happening:

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/STATEMENT_22_1423

European Commission, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States joint statement:

The following measures will be brought forward:
1) Disconnection of certain Russian banks from SWIFT
2) Russia central bank assets paralized
3) Russian oligarchs assets frozen on EU market

Ugh, certain Russian banks is incredibly half assed and just gives them time to switch to the crappy Chinese knock off.

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

The main difference between the German Volkssturm in 1945 and Ukrainian civilians today is certainly a significantly different level in morale. My own grandfather deserted before he could be drafted into the Volkssturm.

An infinitely less noisome and likely much more relevant analogy from German history would be the Landwehr regiments of 1813-15. They might not have been as effective as regulars, but they were still useful, as motivation and morale were high enough to partially overcome their deficiencies in training and equipment.

But that was before the era of motorization and ariel support.  Another one I can think of would be the 2003 Iraq Fedayeen but in that case, they did get some training months in advance and mostly turned out to be ineffective.

Speaking of which, how is the Ukrainian air force doing? Do we have any idea?

Still flying last I heard.

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

I've seen a lot of posts and articles talking about how outmatched Ukraine is in terms of personnel, equipment, and funding. This CNN post, for example, discusses how Russia's military budget eclipses Ukraine's by a factor of ten to one.

However, doesn't this overlook some pretty basic logistical differences? First and most obvious, Ukraine does not have a nuclear weapons program to maintain. Also, Russia is currently maintaining other military sites across Eurasia while a fraction of its army faces literally the entire army of Ukraine. The statistics about vehicles are also pretty scary, but even so, tanks and trucks are only useful so long as you can guarantee them a steady supply of gasoline. The air force comparison is also overwhelming though, which makes it surprising that Russia hasn't been able to obtain total air control yet.

I sincerely hope I underestimated Ukraine at the outset of this war. I didn't realize they actually have one of the higher military budgets in Europe.

Something to consider when talking about Russian equipment is that Russia, due to it’s status as the arms supplier of choice for everyone the Western world won’t sell to, tends to inflate their capabilities while Western nations tend be deliberately very vague about what their new equipment can do so that competitors can’t bench mark it. Rule of thumb, anything American, French, or German is better than publicly available sources say and anything Russian is worse than public sources say.

Of course that may not really apply here since both sides are largely fighting with the same stuff.

The other factor at play here is that Russia, even though the regional forces they have deployed look overwhelming, does not seem to have the capacity to deploy them all at once. EG their air forces look vastly superior but it may be that simply can’t don’t have the fuel, parts, and mechanics to keep all that many flying. Plus, they seem to have failed to clear Ukrainian air defenses also seem to have largely survived the initial wave of strikes (lack of precision motions?).

With the numbers, it’s unlikely Ukraine can hold out, but it’s looking allot bloodier and allot longer than it did on paper.

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

The Russian and American nuclear preparedness scales run in the opposite direction: the higher the number, the more serious in the Russian system, not the other way around.

That a relief, in the US DEFCON 2 is ‘ready to drop the bombs’.

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

I'm in Washington DC for a law school event right now. Please let me know when the Defcon level reaches 1 so I know when to leave the city. kthx

DEFCON 1 means the war has already started

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

Does Ukraine have drones? Wondering if us Americans could give them some.

They’ve bought quite a few of those Turkish drones the Azerbaijanis used against Armenia

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

https://twitter.com/samueloakford/status/1498020453088043010?t=w6S_KqNFB1aoC7wCx...

Wow, this is almost exactly in line with numbers the Ukrainians are putting out.

If Russian sources are confirming, it looks like it wasn’t as optimistic or inflated as we thought.

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2022/02/27/romney-russia-putin-geopolitical-foe-obama-sot-reax-bash-sotu-vpx.cnn

Wow Romney bashes President Bush here to just not Obama and Trump

Bush pussied out on Russia just like Obama and Trump did

Bush was tricked by him. Obama was naive and Trump was complicit.

That's a fair analysis tbh

I would go so far as to say that we wouldn’t be talking about Russia now if 20162012 was different.

FTFY

This is true. Obama's administration openly supported the 2014 protests that toppled Ukraine's pro-Russian president. This was a mistake that Romney would be unlikely to make, though for sure, he would make others. Obama talked about a "new start" with Russia, but his administration poisoned the well (unintentionally). Of course, it's not clear how Romney actually would have dealt with Russia. Most likely, the next Ukrainian election just results in the election of another pro-Russian president.

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

https://twitter.com/christogrozev/status/1498029060085075969
Russian state media accidentally pre-published Putin’s planned victory speech.

The upshot, Ukraine is rightfully Russian and denazification means annexation into the Russian federation

Can we finally put to bed the notion that the Minsk agreement Russia ignored anyway or any other unspecified compromise would have prevented the invasion?

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

https://twitter.com/christogrozev/status/1498029060085075969
Russian state media accidentally pre-published Putin’s planned victory speech.

The upshot, Ukraine is rightfully Russian and denazification means annexation into the Russian federation

Can we finally put to bed the notion that the Minsk agreement Russia ignored anyway or any other unspecified compromise would have prevented the invasion?

He clearly rules out annexation, but everything else you say is correct

He doesn’t, ‘statehood won’t be liquidated’ means Ukraine as a constituent republic of the Russian Federation. TBF, it could also mean a Belarusian ‘union state’ agreement.

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

https://twitter.com/christogrozev/status/1498029060085075969
Russian state media accidentally pre-published Putin’s planned victory speech.

The upshot, Ukraine is rightfully Russian and denazification means annexation into the Russian federation

Can we finally put to bed the notion that the Minsk agreement Russia ignored anyway or any other unspecified compromise would have prevented the invasion?

He clearly rules out annexation, but everything else you say is correct

He doesn’t, ‘statehood won’t be liquidated’ means Ukraine as a constituent republic of the Russian Federation. TBF, it could also mean a Belarusian ‘union state’ agreement.

I think it is the latter.

Possible, but there is little practice difference. This is a strait up war of conquest and no concessions short of total pre-emptive capitulation was going to stop it.

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

This is going to be a disaster for Lukashenko

He even publicly stated Belarus would only get involved if Russia was attacked by NATO. He says contradictory things all the time, but I'm not sure what on Earth state media would be able to spin an invasion of Ukraine as.

"Russia has sent thousands of troops into Belarus, but the country’s authoritarian leader said Friday there will only be war if “aggression is committed against Belarus” or “our ally Russia.”

“If our country faces an aggression, there will be hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers here, who will defend this sacred land together with hundreds of thousands of Belarusians,” President Alexander Lukashenko said in a national address."

But he warned that the West is seeking “to drown the Russian-Ukrainian brotherhood, our Slavic brotherhood, in blood,” adding, “But we will return Ukraine to the bosom of Slavs. We will definitely do it.”"

https://www.politico.eu/article/russia-alexander-lukashenko-belarus-ukraine-conflict-crisis/

I have to wonder what the chances of Belarusian Lt. Colonel whoever looking at the Kyiv meat grinder and deciding the chance of Lukashenko actually being able to punish mutineers are lower than the chances he gets fragged.

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

How the Russian monarchist scene outside of Vladimir Zhirinovsky on the days he claim to be a monarchist.

I can’t imagine the experience with the current mad Tsar is making it stronger

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

Emerging market currencies down 2%. RUB crashed below 110.  Russian banks raise mortgage rates by 4% in anticipation of rising credit issues and inflation.  So far the shock is about the same or a bit less than the late 2014 shock but this is just the beginning.

Only 2014?! That’s awful, no?

The markets are not fully open. FX trade as I said is very very light. The ruble is not one of the main traded pairs anyways. Equity markets fell as much as 40% on Friday in Moscow. There will be more to come.

Could this become a legitimate humanitarian crisis?

Russia has enough farmland to feed its people and enough oil to keep the lights on. It's not going to be a humanitarian crisis, but it is going to be a early 2010s Greece speedrun within a week.

can’t csto and China prop them up?

Would they bother?

Russia is useful to China mostly as a big ole oil field and a military that menaces and distracts the west. A ruined Russia means cheaper gas and North Korea proves you don’t need much of an economy to do the later.

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

Retired Gen. Philip Breedlove on a no-fly zone. He supports it, but finds it unlikely to happen. Breedlove was Supreme Allied Commander Europe 2013-2016.

https://twitter.com/ak_mack/status/1498081883149807621

Wouldn’t an NFZ mean conventional fighting between NATO and Russian forces?
I want to do everything for Ukraine, but the risk of nuclear escalation from that is too great.

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

https://twitter.com/HegelwCrmCheese/status/1497988266531950592

We could use a laugh

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

American intel has been absolutely elite so far in this war, I trust them to know exactly what's going on in Russia and know which buttons we need to press to end the war and (hopefully) get Putin fragged.

Our foreign intelligence apparatus was build to monitor the Soviets.

They might struggle with Middle Eastern militias, but they are really damn good at spying on Russians.

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

Retired Gen. Philip Breedlove on a no-fly zone. He supports it, but finds it unlikely to happen. Breedlove was Supreme Allied Commander Europe 2013-2016.

https://twitter.com/ak_mack/status/1498081883149807621

Wouldn’t an NFZ mean conventional fighting between NATO and Russian forces?
I want to do everything for Ukraine, but the risk of nuclear escalation from that is too great.

I’m open to calling the nuclear bluff.

Bruh:

https://twitter.com/McFaul/status/1498065915665022983

What is the worst he will do, nuke DC? GO ahead Putin, do your worst!

Uhh? Literally start a nuclear holocaust? That he doesn't care about? Because he's going to die soon anyways and no longer gives a you know what about his country anyways.

Do you honestly think he will?

In a conventional hot war with NATO, almost certainly.

Modern Western style armies, when moving into contested areas, have to conduct aerial advanced strikes well into enemy held territory to protect themselves from long range missile and artillery fire. Those deep strikes would look indistinguishable from operations to blind Russia in advance of a nuclear first strike. That is why you never, ever allow two nuclear armies to start shooting at each other.

With respect to Gen. Clark, he did almost kick off WWIII in Bosnia way back.

[Buffalo Mayor Young Kim]

Retired Gen. Philip Breedlove on a no-fly zone. He supports it, but finds it unlikely to happen. Breedlove was Supreme Allied Commander Europe 2013-2016.

https://twitter.com/ak_mack/status/1498081883149807621

Wouldn’t an NFZ mean conventional fighting between NATO and Russian forces?
I want to do everything for Ukraine, but the risk of nuclear escalation from that is too great.

I’m open to calling the nuclear bluff.

Bruh:

https://twitter.com/McFaul/status/1498065915665022983

What is the worst he will do, nuke DC? GO ahead Putin, do your worst!

Uhh? Literally start a nuclear holocaust? That he doesn't care about? Because he's going to die soon anyways and no longer gives a you know what about his country anyways.

Do you honestly think he will?

In a conventional hot war with NATO, almost certainly.

Modern Western style armies, when moving into contested areas, have to conduct aerial advanced strikes well into enemy held territory to protect themselves from long range missile and artillery fire. Those deep strikes would look indistinguishable from operations to blind Russia in advance of a nuclear first strike. That is why you never, ever allow two nuclear armies to start shooting at each other.

With respect to Gen. Clark, he did almost kick off WWIII in Bosnia way back.

Right...because Russian generals totally don't know this.

It’s not a matter of knowing this. It’s a matter of not being able to tell. When you add in the general strategy of intentionally isolating and blinding command and control, which is central to Western doctrine, it’s almost inevitable that one of them decides this is the big one.

Right now, if Putin decided to launch a nuclear strike, better than even odds are that Russian High Command would off him rather than do it. If there were a shooting war with NATO on, they definitely would pull the trigger.