Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[Aurelius]

A potentially stupid question, though I wonder how Putin would react to NATO actually getting involved militarily to assist Ukraine. Would he actually risk a direct confrontation with NATO and the United States, or would he blink? I'm saying we should intervene, I just ask myself how he'd react.

I think I heard he was talking about Russia's great nuclear might in one of his speeches a few days ago. And saying if anyone interferes they will face consequences no one has ever seen before. Which to me means H bombs.

[Aurelius]

Part of me is convinced that if this invasion fails Putin is done.

The Russian military, so lauded at home and abroad would have been done in by a vastly inferior, although well armed, force. The stock market has tanked, the ruble is worthless. sure energy prices are up but that's little cost for the international embarrassment. The war is not popular as is.

This is why I'm so tired of people babbling about sanctions. Obviously that should be part of the conversation, but what needed to happen (and what still needs to happen) is arming the Ukrainian army and public as much as possible to kill as many Russian soldiers as possible. See how much the Russians really worship their false god Vladimir Putin when their boys are dying in droves in a foreign country.  

Supposedly the Russian forces are bringing mobile incinerators along with them to burn bodies and hide any evidence of casualties.

Of course that won't stop mom and dad back home from knowing something's wrong when young Dmitry never comes back.

[Aurelius]

So is this Zelensky's master plan? Arming the citizenry and expecting people to turn their cities and towns into all-out war zones? Do the users in this thread promoting this idea understand the misery and destruction that insurgencies bring?

I'm not saying the people of Ukraine should give up without a fight, but there has to be a limit to what you expect of civilian populations.

If my homeland were being destroyed by an invader I'd fight to the death to defend it, or at least I'd like to hope so. Freedom over capitulation.

A lot of posters on Atlas are Anywheres rather than Somewheres and have a different mindset on this.

[Aurelius]

So is this Zelensky's master plan? Arming the citizenry and expecting people to turn their cities and towns into all-out war zones? Do the users in this thread promoting this idea understand the misery and destruction that insurgencies bring?

I'm not saying the people of Ukraine should give up without a fight, but there has to be a limit to what you expect of civilian populations.

If my homeland were being destroyed by an invader I'd fight to the death to defend it. Freedom over capitulation.

A lot of posters on Atlas are Anywheres rather than Somewheres and have a different mindset on this.

Very easy for you to say given that your home isn't the one under threat. I certainly hope I'd do the same, but it's impossible to say for sure until one is put in such a situation. All I'm saying is that I don't blame the Ukrainian people if an insurgency doesn't materialize-- and anyone who does blame them is profoundly ignorant.

Fair point.

[Aurelius]

Like StateBoiler said, a militia is certainly much less capable, man for man, than a professional military. In the early history of the United States, when there was a strong ideological preference for volunteer militia over standing armies, the militia forces repeatedly proved themselves less potent than the regulars on a broad scale, despite individual moments of heroics. However, it's still much better than nothing. If you have millions of Ukrainians doing nothing militarily, going about their ordinary civilian lives, and then you recruit from them as an auxiliary to your standing army, that will add to your strength.

Ukraine has a population of 44 million, and there's probably 8-10 million fighting age men in there. Obviously only a small fraction will likely volunteer, but is not insignificant.

[Aurelius]

https://twitter.com/SamRamani2/status/1496901716876443648?s=20&t=IA9yLGC2x-U...

Why were Russia ships being allowed to cross the straits anyway? The Russians were building up an invasion to (theoretically) end increasing ties between Ukraine and NATO, why was a NATO member letting them move warship into the area.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreux_Convention_Regarding_the_Regime_of_the_Straits

https://twitter.com/SonerCagaptay/status/1496837367436562435

[Aurelius]

Kyiv is apparently expected to fall sometime in the next week. Is there any information about the likely fate of western Ukraine, particularly Lviv? And is Poland expected to get involved if Lviv or areas to its west are attacked?

[Aurelius]

Also, where are all the anti-Imperialist leftists in this thread?

"Imperialism is when a country is EU-aligned. The more EU-aligned it is, the imperialister it is."

Speaking of government-level versions of that, the current count of Russia-supporting countries:

-Belarus has actually attacked Ukraine so is in a category of its own
-Syria, Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, and the Houthis in Yemen 100% openly support Russia
-Iran and China are a little more veiled in their statements but it’s clear they support Russia
-While I don’t have a link to a source yet it would be totally unsurprising if North Korea supports Russia
-I’ve read the Saudis are cooperating with Russia to increase oil prices but don’t have confirmation yet
-Since Wikipedia doesn’t have maps up yet of world reactions to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but they do have one for the “recognition of independence of the two Donbas entities”, we can use this as a decent proxy.

-With the exception of some microstates all of Europe has condemned Russia except for - Omega trigger warning! - Republika Srpska and Serbia proper!

-There are still a lot of countries I am very curious about in regards to their stance.

Serbia can at least make the argument that Donbass is no different than Kosovo. I'm saying that to be more anti-Kosovo precendent than to be pro-Donbass independence.

What are Armenia and Kazakhstan saying?

I expect most of the "Rest of the non-Western World" to fall behind whatever the Chinese viewpoint is.

Kazakhstan condemned the recognition.

Surprising and bold move from them after Russia intervened to help their government suppress the popular uprising last month.

[Aurelius]

https://twitter.com/business/status/1496921478721327110

This is horrifying. Kabul all over again.

[Aurelius]

So we know that Russia will seize control of Ukraine and install a puppet regime? What will the US, EU, NATO and other major world powers do?

Will Russia be effectively cut off from the rest of the world? Or will this all just blow-over?

Russia and China announced a "No Limits Partnership" recently. That's a huge market for Russia regardless of what the West does.

[Aurelius]

https://twitter.com/akarlin0/status/1496851833549111306?t=4exQQlREwR_bfqAxhL2V6A...

Karlin is batshlt insane, but his Twitter feed the past few days has been a good look into the minds of hardcore Russian nationalists.

[Aurelius]

https://mobile.twitter.com/DanCrenshawTX/status/1496861025194418179?cxt=HHwWhoC5...

Russia should be kicked out of all international organizations. A complete and total boycott and quarantine. His regime needs to be bankrupted, even at the cost of some economic pain for the West.

Sadly this seems to be why the west can’t respond properly to either Russia or China . We are so addicted with low prices that it hampers our ability to respond.

Would also help if we'd spent the past year expanding production instead of constricting it. Biden's foreign policy has been good but his domestic policy is a disaster across the board and this is an example.

[Aurelius]

S&P 500 now up 0.7 on the day !!!  I guess the fear of something bad is always worse than that bad thing itself.

The bad of Ukraine ceasing to exist as a sovereign nation far, far outweighs your portfolio going up slightly.

[Aurelius]

S&P 500 now up 0.7 on the day !!!  I guess the fear of something bad is always worse than that bad thing itself.

I am pretty sure that you have no idea what you are talking about. You've been wrong about Putin's aims and ambitions in Ukraine, you failed to predict this invasion and now you're making pronouncements about "fear of something bad" being worse than "the bad thing" before we even understand the full extent of this war, its meaning, its length, duration, the effect of sanctions etc. Shut up man.

It's jaichind. Good and bad for him is entirely based on its effect on his financial investments.

[Aurelius]

S&P 500 now up 0.7 on the day !!!  I guess the fear of something bad is always worse than that bad thing itself.

The bad of Ukraine ceasing to exist as a sovereign nation far, far outweighs your portfolio going up slightly.

Hmmm .. just to be clear I want the US equity markets to go down.  In my last portfolio rebalance in late 2021 I have become very underweight equities.    I plan to be heavy intermediate fixed income late in 2022 so I am looking to get back into equities again in between that transition.  So for me it is ideal that US equities go down a lot, ideally bottoming out in March 2022.

The point


Your head

[Aurelius]

https://twitter.com/ASLuhn/status/1496869020372398080

[Aurelius]

https://twitter.com/spectatorindex/status/1496945541296832512

[Aurelius]

Ukraine has banned men ages 18-60 from leaving the country.

https://twitter.com/OSINT_Ukraine/status/1496957973695971329

[Aurelius]

https://twitter.com/OSINT_Ukraine/status/1496963069397938177

Unconfirmed reports of Russian vehicles in Mykolaiv (east of Odesa).

[Aurelius]

We probably lack the info needed to put a (likely) Russian defeat at Hostomel airport in a wider context. It's definitely good for Ukraine on net in terms of winning or losing this war, but it's not necessarily good enough for Ukraine. We shall see a more complete picture in due time.

Even the significant tactical successes that Ukraine is achieving are, in my opinion, striking, regardless of whether it is realistic to expect them to lead to any sort of immediate strategic conventional victory.

There is a marked contrast between e.g. the US/allied military performance in the First Gulf war, the 2nd Gulf War, and whatever you call what Russia is doing right now.

Russia should be able to eventually win the conventional part of the war (the occupation and potential insurgency being another phase and another matter), but this looks a lot more like a fight between semi-equal/competitive powers, not the sort of curbstomp that I think a lot of people were expecting.

Russia is showing surprising weakness. Unless they have something significant up their sleeves, this can't have been what Putin had hoped for when he put this into motion.

If Russia is having this much difficulty already, they may have a lot more difficulty if and win urban combat gets going.


And by the way, just because I really need to get it off my chest and feel like I really need to say this, F*** Putin.

Considering that the war doesn't seem to be that popular in Russia, is it possible that at least some Russian troops just don't put that much effort into it?

No. Soldiers fight for their buddies in the unit and their lives. Plus rigorous training to act as indeed. Political unpopularity won't affect morale after significant time, not 24 hours in.

Not to mention I question how unpopular the war really is. The demonstrations are relatively sparse, and the average Russian, happily brainwashed by uncontridicted state media, probably tends to share the nationalist "Russia is surrounded by enemies and must attack in self defense" mentality.

Yeah, this. Everything we're seeing from news anchors who are saying "I talked to all my friends in Moscow and none of them support the war" or even "I walked around Moscow and everyone I talked to said they are against it", suffers from a biased sample. It's like going around diplomatic row on DC, asking people if they like Trump, and generalizing to the whole country based on that.

[Aurelius]

https://mobile.twitter.com/nexta_tv/status/1496996144395612167

[Aurelius]

Hearing chatter about a potential ceasefire. Anyone got concrete info?

[Aurelius]

https://mobile.twitter.com/ragipsoylu/status/1496980893180870658

https://mobile.twitter.com/ManilaChan/status/1496942434063986697

Second tweet is from a RT reporter, so take it with a massive grain of salt.

[Aurelius]

https://mobile.twitter.com/ELINTNews/status/1496980444868493316

Zelensky showing some moral fiber.

[Aurelius]

Website of the Russian Ministry of Defense - both the Russian and the English version - are a total blank.

https://mil.ru/
https://eng.mil.ru/

What's going on?

I'm getting HTTP code 418. That's the joke error code "I'm a teapot". I assume some computer-savvy prankster is having fun at the Russkies' expense.