Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[All Along The Watchtower]

The really enlightened position is that the Great War wasn’t a world war. The real World War I was the Seven Years’ War.

War of the Spanish succession imo

Not the Nine Years’ War just before?

[All Along The Watchtower]

The really enlightened position is that the Great War wasn’t a world war. The real World War I was the Seven Years’ War.

War of the Spanish succession imo

You know, I've always wondered why wars like The Wars of Spanish Succession, the Seven Years War, and the Napoleonic Wars aren't considered "World Wars" since they involved all the major powers of the international system and had fighting on multiple continents. By that standard, we would be on like World War IX by now.

WW1 is really only called WW1 cause of it’s connection to WW2 , otherwise it would just be called The  Great War .

You didn’t address the question.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Can we admit Ukraine into the EU and NATO already?

Not possible at this moment, for the most obvious of obvious reasons. You realize that, yes?

[All Along The Watchtower]

Gigabrain takes here:

"The Russians were the ones who blew up the dam, but as a result this is actually in Ukraine's favor"

Russia has a long track record of committing war crimes and attacking civilian targets + being militarily incompetent and strategically stupid, so this isn’t out of character.

In fact, this entire “military special operation” has been defined by all of the above on the Russian side.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Washington Post reports that the Nord Stream pipeline was destroyed last year in a Ukrainian military operation. CIA had foreknowledge of the operation, but Ukrainian general staff supposedly didn't inform Zelenskyy to give him plausible deniability.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jun/06/biden-knew-of-plan-to-attack-nord-stream-three-months-before-explosion

Absolutely scandalous …










….that the Nord Stream pipelines were ever built.

Good riddance, and good on the Ukrainians.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Seems that it's a bit early to say either way, no?

[All Along The Watchtower]

Prigozhin will get what is coming to him soon enough.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Isn't it such an indictment of Vlad the Lazy (and the Russian MOD) that this feuding assclown has been allowed to attain this much power and publicity? Even from a "patriotic Russian" standard the President is not doing his goddamn job and hasn't been for a while.

[All Along The Watchtower]

For some perspective:

Ukraine launched it's counteroffensive 2 months ago, ever since then they have taken 10 settlements. Russians have recently taken 4 in Luhansk. That means in total Ukrainians have only a net gain of....  

6 villages

So Ukraine took 10 and Russia took 4. Yet somehow that means Russia is winning. Do they not teach math at Vatnik troll school?

This is after a half year preparation for with tens of billions of dollars worth of equipment and assault units, where they were supposed to take dozens already.

If I really want to twist it, during the course of 2023, Russia has taken double the amount of settlements during the Soledar/Bakhmut offensive. So yes, this year the Russians are the ones winning.

“Supposed to?” You do realize the Ukrainians have always been the underdogs in this war, yes?

The bottom line is that Russia lost this war when it invaded and failed to defeat the Ukrainians in a decisive blow early on. Yes, Putin can and will fight on at the cost of many more tens of thousands of Russian and Ukrainian lives, but there’s no winning for him or Russia in this conflict, and considering his age and increased international (and physical) isolation it’s a safe bet to say that this is his last war.

I suppose Russia (as in, the Russian people) will have the opportunity to win in a different way once Putin, Patrushev, Shoigu, Gerasimov, and the other old men running Russia are gone. In any event, Ukraine fights on and will continue to do so.

[All Along The Watchtower]

American Revolution is called revolution because it’s historically perceived as a good development. But I can see why a British person would see it as a coup backed by France since it was prejudicial for the United Kingdom.

Was it though

[All Along The Watchtower]

https://www.globalvillagespace.com/ukraine-must-copy-1944-nazi-germany-retired-us-general/

"Ukraine must copy 1944 Nazi Germany – retired US general"

Former commander of US Army forces stationed in Europe Ben Hodges recommends Ukraine copy 1944 Germany in terms of total mobilization which I have to assume will also include Volkssturm units.  

Really unfortunate comparison, particularly given Russia’s propaganda about this war. And yeah, the war was already lost for Germany by 1944, which is what prompted the total mobilization.

Of course the context here is different in that Ukraine has been in the defensive position by definition since they were the ones who were invaded.

[All Along The Watchtower]

The unregenerate campist onanism that now makes up the lion's share of this thread for some reason aside, PSOL is probably right that if NATO is serious about cultivating Ukraine as a partner then we probably need to either step up aid again or let them increase the frequency of strikes within Russia.

I do know Ukrainians on the ground who share that sentiment and are frustrated that they feel they have to fight with one hand tied behind their back when it comes to this issue

And many people in NATO countries (including politicians, powerful ones in some cases) complain about Ukraine’s lack of progress and want to use that as justification to stop supporting the country.

The most charitable explanation is that they’re simply uninformed, but that cannot possibly true of those in government espousing this view.

[All Along The Watchtower]

https://www.newsweek.com/tucker-carlson-sanctions-eu-putin-interview-1867655

"Exclusive: Tucker Carlson Could Face Sanctions Over Putin Interview"

More of that Blinken's rule based order in action

It’s a few EU parliamentarians who are calling for this, not the US Secretary of State. The sanctions he could hypothetically face (and he almost certainly won’t) are EU ones. The US isn’t mentioned.

[All Along The Watchtower]

In peacetime, generals shouldn't be publicly undermining their Commander-in-Chief, irrespective of the accuracy of their comments. In the midst of fighting off an invasion by a much larger power, you really can't have generals doing that.

Zelenskyy is treating Zaluzhny with kid gloves, frankly.

[All Along The Watchtower]

if only to prevent Putin from setting his sights on the Baltics and other NATO countries afterwards.

People keep saying he is planning on doing this without a shred of evidence. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and saying that Russia will invade a NATO member state is an extraordinary claim indeed.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Putin is extraordinarily ambitious.  

On the contrary, he’s generally risk-averse and usually just opportunistic when he makes aggressive moves. He genuinely didn’t think NATO would react the way it did to the February 2022 invasion, or that Ukrainians would put up much of a fight. He was being briefed by the FSB that they had plenty of collaborators on the ground who would “greet the Russians as liberators”, so to speak. He genuinely thought it would be easy. That doesn’t strike me as the mentality of a conscious gambler.  

If he succeeds in Ukraine (albeit at great cost), he will set his sights higher -and the Baltics make perfect sense as his next target.  And then we will see whether Article 5 is more than just words on a page when it is actually put to the test.

He doesn’t have the ability to conquer all of Ukraine, and he doesn’t have the manpower or other military resources to occupy the Baltics (and Poland, for one, would have something to say about that—I hear they have a large and well-resourced military and don’t like Russia). Well ok, maybe he has enough manpower if he drafted every Russian, but he might as well put a bullet in his own head at that point since the Russian people (and the Russian state, with all of its military and security forces who would be deployed on multiple fronts further and further from their supply lines) would revolt en masse faster than you can say “party like it’s 1917.”

I mean f—king Lukashenko isn’t helping Putin that much with the war directly, because no one in Belarus wants to die in Ukraine for Russia and Lukashenko doesn’t want to be put up against the wall by his people.

I want to avoid getting to that point.  Hence we should consider smashing the Russian army in Ukraine if it looks like Ukraine is beginning to falter.

And we might as well invade Iran while we’re at it. Seriously, can we calm down a bit about this stuff? It shouldn’t take fearmongering about Russian tanks rolling into Warsaw or wherever to support Ukraine, because Ukraine is inherently worth supporting.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Putin is extraordinarily ambitious.  

On the contrary, he’s generally risk-averse and usually just opportunistic when he makes aggressive moves. He genuinely didn’t think NATO would react the way it did to the February 2022 invasion, or that Ukrainians would put up much of a fight. He was being briefed by the FSB that they had plenty of collaborators on the ground who would “greet the Russians as liberators”, so to speak. He genuinely thought it would be easy. That doesn’t strike me as the mentality of a conscious gambler.  

If he succeeds in Ukraine (albeit at great cost), he will set his sights higher -and the Baltics make perfect sense as his next target.  And then we will see whether Article 5 is more than just words on a page when it is actually put to the test.

He doesn’t have the ability to conquer all of Ukraine, and he doesn’t have the manpower or other military resources to occupy the Baltics (and Poland, for one, would have something to say about that—I hear they have a large and well-resourced military and don’t like Russia). Well ok, maybe he has enough manpower if he drafted every Russian, but he might as well put a bullet in his own head at that point since the Russian people (and the Russian state, with all of its military and security forces who would be deployed on multiple fronts further and further from their supply lines) would revolt en masse faster than you can say “party like it’s 1917.”

I mean f—king Lukashenko isn’t helping Putin that much with the war directly, because no one in Belarus wants to die in Ukraine for Russia and Lukashenko doesn’t want to be put up against the wall by his people.

I want to avoid getting to that point.  Hence we should consider smashing the Russian army in Ukraine if it looks like Ukraine is beginning to falter.

And we might as well invade Iran while we’re at it. Seriously, can we calm down a bit about this stuff? It shouldn’t take fearmongering about Russian tanks rolling into Warsaw or wherever to support Ukraine, because Ukraine is inherently worth supporting.

The raison d'être of the Russian invasion was to prevent the emergence of postwar Ukraine (with a sizable ethnic Russian and Russian-speaking population) as a successful democratic, capitalist state aligned firmly with the West.  Given Russia views Ukraine as a 'little Russia', a democratic Ukraine could inspire Russia itself to reclaim its democracy at the expense of Putin and his autocratic state.  Without Ukraine and its natural resources, Russia cannot reclaim its empire, or so the theory goes.  

Putin's ambitions may be defensive in nature, but they don't make him any less ambitious or dangerous.  He must not be allowed to succeed. Perhaps you think it is beyond the pale for a successful Putin to start peeling away outlying NATO members like those in the Baltics, but if enough Orbans are elected in European capitals in coming elections (to say nothing if Trump is elected President again in the United States with a subservient Republican Party at his beck and call), I wouldn't be so sure that a subsequently divided NATO would be inspired to defend them.  

Time is of the essence -Putin must be defeated decisively.  Sooner rather than later.  

Outside of keeping Crimea and the Donbas Putin’s goals are political, not military. He wants to divide Europe/NATO, exhaust them with “Ukraine fatigue”, and isolate Ukraine itself so Kyiv can be forced into a humiliating deal with Russia. None of this requires the use of the Russian military outside of Ukraine.

Why would Putin launch any more risky military operations in other countries when he can just cut deals with, as you noted, a bunch of Orbans and a Trump-led United States? That seems to me both a lot less risky and also more plausible than all-out war with any NATO member states.

[All Along The Watchtower]

https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/28/politics/pentagon-considering-tapping-last-source-ukraine-funding/index.html

The Pentagon is weighing whether to tap into the last remaining source of funding it has for military aid to support Ukraine’s war effort against Russia even without guarantees that those funds will be replenished by Congress, multiple defense officials told CNN.

The Defense Department still has around $4 billion in presidential drawdown authority funds available for Ukraine, which allows the Pentagon to draw from its own stockpiles to send military equipment to Kyiv.

But the Pentagon had previously been reluctant to spend any of that remaining money without assurances it would be reimbursed by Congress through the administration’s $60 billion supplemental funding request, because taking from DoD stockpiles with no plan to replenish that equipment could impact US military readiness.

“At issue here again is the question of impacting our own readiness, as a nation, and the responsibilities that we have,” he said last month when asked about the money. “And so, yes, while we do have that $4.2 billion in authority, we don’t have the funds available to us to replenish those stocks should we expend that. And with no timeline in sight, we have to make those hard decisions.”

This is so unbelievably idiotic. The US military has tons of spare, and besides they have no plausible reason to be fighting a war in the next decade. The Pentagon should be scraping the bottom of its reserves to send to Ukraine right now and it's shameful that they keep dithering over bullsh*t reasons like this.

Between this and the MIA In A Hospital scandal, I think Austin should probably resign.

It's a bad idea to put retired generals in the SecDef job anyway.

[All Along The Watchtower]

IMO, the US narrative with Navalny is more about gaining sympathy from a US audience by exploiting the death.  The whole story seems fishy to me.  Why would he return to Russia after Germany accused Putin of poisoning him? 

To put all of the anti-Putin Russians living comfortably in the West to shame.

Navalny was never going to be Russia's leader, but he and his movement gave Russians (and others) an example of resistance to Putin, and in doing so gave them hope that an alternative was possible. That was his unforgivable crime in the eyes of the Kremlin.

[All Along The Watchtower]

I think in reality for any real Russia-Ukraine talks to take place Putin will have to be overthrown first and the new regime can say to the Russian public "Putin really messed up but we cannot do anything about it now but to deal with the consequences.  Part of dealing with that is to give some ground to the Ukrainians to try to stop this war."

[All Along The Watchtower]

Washington Post: Russia has gained more land in one month (April to May 2024), than Ukraine ever did during it's counteroffensive (June to December 2023)

The amount of territory Russia has occupied over the last several weeks is about as large as the territory Ukraine retook during its lackluster spring counteroffensive in 2023.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2024/05/17/russia-ukraine-front-line-gains/

Even though Russian sources have said this week that their Troops may have been slowed down by UAF reinforcement, footage clearly indicates that Ukraine is unable to put together a competent defense along the Kharkiv directions, and they expect another spearhead into Sumy.  Faster Russian gains along the entire front is expected at this point, and mappers can't keep up with the changes that occurred in Luhansk, Donetsk, and Zaporizhzhia.  I haven't seen any consistent images or videos of Ukraine inflicting heavy losses on Russia.  None.  I don't even know if they can do it anymore. Meanwhile, the losses Ukraine is suffering on the Kharkiv front are completely unsustainable, and they're defense. They literally cannot move armored vehicles, tanks, or equipment into areas without it getting creamed by drones, planes, or missiles.  They can't even place artillery or anti-aircraft systems outside of Kharkiv City.

Russia has Ukraine on the Ropes.  It's not hyperbole.  It's reality.  They just need one more spearhead through/towards Chasiv Yar, Pokrovsk, Kurakhove, or Velyka to achieve victory in Donetsk, as well as a collapse of defensive lines protecting Luhansk from the South. 

This is certainly not the worst advertisement for a NATO military intervention.

[All Along The Watchtower]

So, we are saying the initial reports of a complete Ukranian collapse in the Kharkiv region were false?

Totally shocked and no mistake.

Tbh I see Russia’s recent operations there as more about forcing a diversion of Ukrainian forces from other fronts rather than a serious attempt to take Kharkiv.

Also, we shouldn’t discount the political considerations within Russia, specifically near the border with Ukraine where there’s been a lot of anger about Moscow’s inability to stop Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory. So appeasing that domestic anger is likely as much of not more a factor in the recent attacks on Kharkiv as any strictly military goals.

[All Along The Watchtower]

And I haven't seen the Ukrainians make a sustained counteroffensive operation all year, yet they publicly are stating they expect to take all this land back which leads to the obvious question of how.

Honestly I wish they (and their NATO supporters) didn’t allow the Russians to move the goalposts in their own narrative of the war. Most of Ukrainian territory is not occupied, Zelenskyy is still in power rather than a Kremlin stooge, and Russia is much more of a pariah and dependent on China in a way that most Russians resent.

The thing is. Russians consider themselves European and are angry that they’ve been excluded from the club, so to speak (on account of Moscow’s own horrible behavior, of course).  And obviously this war has been disastrous for ordinary Russians, whether it be economically, any remaining faint trace of political freedom they had before the “Special Military Operation”—not to mention, the massive number of casualties Russian has experienced on the battlefield.

The point being, I understand why Ukrainians would want to retake all of their Russian-occupied territory (including Crimea), but I worry that they and their NATO backers are inadvertently playing into Moscow’s shifting narrative of their goals.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Russia - Needs a guarantee domestically that it “won” the war (the only thing that will make it end, as its an existential matter for Russia) and achieved their initial goals and ensuring Eastern Ukraine territories become a buffer zone between the West and Russia is the best way to claim that.

How is this war an existential matter for Russia? Why should there be any “buffer zone” in Ukraine?