Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

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https://twitter.com/svtv_news/status/1496752137417928708

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https://twitter.com/svtv_news/status/1496757766513639426?cxt=HHwWhIDSvcXQxsUpAAA...

Ammo depot explosion, Vinnitsa

https://twitter.com/svtv_news/status/1496757782749794305?cxt=HHwWgsDSub7RxsUpAAA...

7 soldiers killed so far according to Ukrainian defense ministry

https://twitter.com/svtv_news/status/1496763096890847235?cxt=HHwWhsC98eeGycUpAAA...

Artillery strike in Uman, Cherkassy

What an absolute waste of human life.

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Kazakhstan has been using vague weasel words to obscure their stance appears to have surprisingly condemned it.

Not that surprising, Tokayev has been trying to get ahead of the discontent by portraying himself as a reformer. Kazakhstan has always had to walk a careful line between Moscow and Washington due to its major economic ties to both so Tokayev isn't going to risk another uprising while the Russians are busy in Ukraine. He's turned out to be a lot more dynamic than he was given credit for.

Markets have been up since Biden started speaking. What exactly was the market pricing in before, NATO to sever diplomatic relations with Russia? I don't understand what's going on here.

There was talk of SWIFT disconnection and a complete end of Russian material and energy exports to Europe. But of course the cost of such a move would be gigantic and would be particularly felt by Germany, which already is seeing unprecedented inflation. The measures Biden has mentioned so far are, compared to what was expected, extremely mild.

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

This is horrifying. Kabul all over again.

There's at least some difference in that a very solid portion of the Ukrainian population is actually armed and ready to resist. The airports and plains of the east and north will fall fairly easily (though by some reports the forces in Donbass are putting up a surprisingly good fight since at least they were prepared) but occupying the cities or making any moves west of Kiev is an entirely different matter. We'll see whether Putin settles for crippling the Ukrainian military, occupying contested regions and imposing a puppet government like in Kosovo or if he goes full Iraq and tries taking the whole country.

Whatever price Putin pays will come from the occupied Ukrainian and anti-war sentiment from the Russian population, not NATO, America or the European Union. Obviously Putin deserves the overwhelming majority of the blame here for a completely unjustified invasion but leading the Ukrainians on to expect some kind of serious response or protection led to this outcome. The precedents set in Kosovo, Iraq, Libya and Syria contrasted with the continuing survival of the North Korean regime also make clear that disarming one's WMDs and relying on the "international community" is downright suicidal.

But on the note of the Russian reaction, the protests that have erupted were immediate and widespread, in at least 50 cities and with 700 arrests in Moscow alone. The protests in St. Petersburg were particularly large

https://twitter.com/svtv_news/status/1496909369069359113

https://twitter.com/svtv_news/status/1496922972929814529

Even smaller cities like Smolensk and Nizhny Novgorod had protests and pickets

https://twitter.com/svtv_news/status/1496895007122415624

https://twitter.com/svtv_news/status/1496926000504279040

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Anyone wishing for a war of annihilation for the sake of “winning” is a psychopath, regardless of which side they want destroyed.

Being contrarian all of the time is the laziest intellectual position imaginable. Just stop.

We have people like Forumlurker who literally want to send Russia back to the Stone Age and kill whoever they view as an enemy. Opposing this isn’t being a “contrarian,” it’s standing up for what’s right. What Russia is pulling right now is evil without a doubt, and Ukraine should have international support, but fantasizes about destruction aren’t right.

The warmongers on both sides are the best of friends. Decades of American and NATO aggression empowered the lunatic neoimperialists in the Russian government, and this in turn will surely give the neocons a great wind to their sails. That there are some idiots on the left still defending Putin doesn't somehow mean that the people responsible for the worst debacles of the 21st Century are suddenly right about everything.

I am baffled by the opposition of booting Russia from SWIFT from Germany and Italy. What the hell are we waiting for?

The last German PPI reading was 25 percent and about half of their raw material imports, most crucially gas, come from Russia. Obviously Putin calculated that the Germans would pay a higher price from sanctions than he would and so far it looks like he's right. Another point in favour of nuclear power, which the Germans are inexplicably scaling back.

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1,700 arrests of anti-war protesters in Russia so far but they seem to still be going. In Moscow:

https://twitter.com/svtv_news/status/1496937265381134348

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The Ukrainians are going to bleed the Russians until they leave, and they are going to do so with (at least) the funding and diplomatic support of the Western World. The Russian army of 2021 isn’t the Red Army of 1941-45, bound together by ideology and fear of Nazi extermination, it’s cold and hungry and being sent to die in a foreign country for a madman’s vanity. The Russians may conquer Ukraine, but they will never hold it.

The the Russians have already sent in half of their forces at the border and they haven't even taken any major cities yet?

That would be roughly 1/6 to 1/3, given reports stated there were almost 200k. Though honestly from what we've seen so far I'd guess the real figure is closer to the smaller number.

The last claim I saw from the Ukrainians was 60,000.

Probably the best comparison in modern history is with the invasion of Iraq, though of course there are big differences. On the one hand, Russian bases surround Ukraine so they have much easier access to strike Ukrainian installations than the US did. They also have a much higher tolerance for casualties, though it certainly isn't limitless. But on the flipside the Ukrainians are much more motivated to fight than the Iraqis were and with MANPADS they can put up a strong resistance even if their fixed emplacements are cratered. In urban combat it isn't clear Russian forces could win without extremely heavy losses or Grozny style mass bombardment. Where the Ukrainian Army is concentrated they seem to have generally held their own, particularly in the government held portions of Donetsk and Luhansk.

The biggest issue the Ukrainians have is that they can't afford to defend everything at once. Even if they manage to win a victory here or there they're highly vulnerable to having key lines of supply cut off from the north and south, negating the need to fight a protracted battle for Mariupol or other well defended cities.

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I thought it was twitter propaganda but wow this seems to be going into Winter war 2.0 which would be impressive considering Ukraines terrain is much worse to defend than Finland.

Genuinely asking, can Ukraine actually win this thing? Or are they just gonna make sh*t suck for the VDV while still not being able to successfully hold back all of the mechanized battalions?

The main issue for the Ukrainians is that even if they win many defensive victories and make advancing on their strongpoints painful, the Russian army has a huge number of forces yet to be deployed (estimated around 60,000 of over 200,000 prepared on the borders alone) and both Kiev and Mariupol are on the verge of encirclement. Zelensky holding his ground might be admirable but if he stays in Kiev then Putin just has an enormous range of options available even if the direct assault fails. He can starve it out with occasional shellings like Sarajevo or if he's desperate for a quick win he could unleash massed artillery on the city and flatten it like Grozny.

If Putin had to push all the way to Lviv it might be a different story but the geography of Ukraine just makes cutting the supply lines of the largest concentrations of Ukrainian forces way too easy. My guess is that if Russian forces aren't able to take Kyiv immediately they'll just go around, take the highways connecting the major cities, and wait for the Ukrainians to run out of supplies in a week or two.

Of course it's also possible Putin genuinely bought his own garbage about the Ukrainian military surrendering without a fight and only needing enough forces to handle the Ukrainian equivalent of ISIS. They gave up pretty fast in 2014 after all, but that was back when their leadership was still littered with Soviet holdovers with little loyalty to the post-Maidan Ukrainian government, whereas the Ukrainian military of 2022 is filled with people who joined with the expectation of combat with Russia. In that case the Ukrainians might actually have a shot, but I wouldn't get my hopes up unless they're able to keep a path to Kiev open or if they're able to evacuate the government to Lviv in a way that isn't catastrophically demoralizing.

Remember that conquering Iraq took a month, so don't get too excited about the developments of a single day. Armenia seemed to be doing well until things went very bad very fast.

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The repercussions of these sanctions are impossible to understate. Forget Russia; the loss of remittances alone is going to be crippling for Central Asian countries. The collateral damage is going to hit countries and people across the world, not just Putin. Perhaps the economic damage inflicted could cause Putin to back down or be removed but it could just as easily cause an unimaginable crisis down the line. Europe especially but even America won't be spared from the impact this has on already stressed supply chains and overheating inflation. I think a lot of people aren't necessarily thinking through the long term results here, and the fact that some measures to punish Putin could severely backfire.

On the military front probably the biggest development is the reported encirclement of Mariupol by motorized elements moving in from Crimea alongside 2,000 marines. Most civilians and press have been evacuated so news is spotty and it's unclear whether the Russians are moving in or if they're opting to put it under siege.

https://twitter.com/Lfmorin/status/1498143635564544005

Finally,

https://twitter.com/svtv_news/status/1498125942857814020

"Mriya was built by the entire Soviet Union to transport Buran.

In trying to unite Ukraine and Russia by force Putin instead destroys what unites us"

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In economic news the biggest beneficiary of the sanctions seems to be Bitcoin, which is up nearly 15% in a single day on almost unprecedented volume from both Ukraine and Russia. This sort of scenario is basically the ultimate use case for Bitcoin in both countries though; saving money from being seized by banks or rapidly devalued and putting it in a form that you can transport out of a wartorn country without getting robbed. While most markets have been in troubled waters the past few days the apocalypse portfolio of commodities, precious metals and cryptocurrency has been pretty much unmatched for returns. Small comfort compared to my cousins getting bombed and pushed back into poverty with crushing sanctions but you take what you can get.

https://twitter.com/BTC_Archive/status/1498355604301168640

Speaking of sanctions, not only ordinary Russians but Georgians, Armenians, Tajiks, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz and Uzbeks will pay the price for Putin's crimes as the poorer CIS countries are highly dependent on remittances from Russia. If they aren't able to work out alternatives (of which cryptocurrency is the most immediate) then we could see a crisis in Central Asia. The binary thinking of certain Westerners embodied in the people lecturing RV where anything short of the most extreme hawkishness is called "pro-Putin" will lead us all to catastrophe if not pushed back on.

https://twitter.com/sopjap/status/1498033040899117060

https://twitter.com/PaulSonne/status/1498075412194332673

In war news, some armed Ukrainians drove off looters

https://twitter.com/svtv_news/status/1498249740554747907

A tractor drove off with a Russian anti-air gun

https://twitter.com/svtv_news/status/1498272836636532740

and this person in Kharkiv found something they didn't expect in their living room

https://twitter.com/svtv_news/status/1498294403529678850

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A never before heard of group of Russian dissidents calling themselves the "National Republican Army" has claimed credit for the Dugin assassination.  This seems to have convinced everyone that it was a FSB hit.

Car bombs are way more typical of actual partisans or terrorists than of the FSB. There are a million ways the FSB could have vanished Dugin or Dugina that wouldn't have made them and the entire regime look totally inept.  Putin is trying to act like everything under control, his supporters getting blown to smitheroons in Moscow completely undermines his appearance of strength.

Most likely it's a lone wolf or small cell looking for attention (since Dugin is both well known to the West and Ukrainians while being far enough from power to be unprotected), possibly with some sort of support from the SBU. Another possibility is that the "NRA" is an SBU front entirely.

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Besides the fact that the FSB could have easily poisoned or simply abducted Dugin without compromising Putin's image, another point against the FSB theory is that the first person to mention the NRA wasn't some Putinist stooge but Ilya Ponomarev, a notorious pro-Ukrainian twitter troll and ex-Russian politician currently fighting with the TDF.

I guess it's not impossible that Ponomarev is some kind of Manchurian Candidate sent by Putin to promote a false flag attack. But the Ukrainians themselves obviously don't believe that and the simpler explanation is that one of the 12,000,000 Muscovites is an anti-war radical who went out and blew up Dugina's car the same way they've been blowing up rail lines and burning recruiting stations over the past several months.

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All these arguments about legality are irrelevant. In reality, those associated with Right Sector have already identified the "collaborators" (NSFW) of newly liberated territories and listed their crimes ranging from "accepted food from Russian military" to "continued to work as a doctor under Russian occupation".

There won't be any prospect of an anti-Ukrainian insurgency because all the prospective insurgents will have either left or been shot. Perhaps a few lucky ones will get actual trials for collaboration. The Ukrainians have zero reason to give amnesty to anyone or to define "collaboration" in overly narrow terms. By Soviet standards they're being generous; they counted as "collaborators" anyone who was captured for any reason and anyone who survived the local German occupation without evacuating or joining the local partisans.

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On the one hand, even partial mobilization is enough to raise the stakes to the point where Putin's regime could plausibly be threatened. If the Ukrainians continue to make gains then the backlash could be serious, though up to this point Putin has demonstrated far more fear of some sort of ultranationalist coup for backing down than of any kind of anti-war uprising.

On the other, I think a lot of people are underestimating the potential difference it could provide in the war. For one thing, most of those called up are unlikely to be just thrown into combat as cannon fodder but to fill either logistical or specialist roles that were previously lacking. In theory, a Russian BTG is supposed to have two such conscripts for each fighting professional soldier but up to this point they've had to pull troops and leave equipment aside to supplement the lack of logistical support. If Russian supply issues are global then partial mobilization won't help but if they're local then it will significantly strengthen their ability to keep heavy pressured forces armed and loaded despite Ukrainian pressure. They also indirectly increase the number of experienced fighters on the Russian side by freeing up those who were partially or fully relegated to logistical work.

A lack of specialists also means that the Russians haven't necessarily been able to fully utilize all of their equipment. The clause against refuseniks in particular could improve their capacity in the use of jets, artillery and tanks that were previously lying idle at garrison bases as well as their capacity to repair and refit damaged equipment.

Finally, partial mobilization basically eliminates the significant manpower advantage the Ukrainians have had up to this point. Arguably the biggest reason they were able to make such significant gains in Izyum is because Russian forces were stretched too thin to simultaneously hold Kherson and Izyum while attacking Bakhmut head on. The forces there were composed of geriatric DPR conscripts with DP-28s backed up by riot cops with rifles. Without a 2-1 advantage in troops the Ukrainians will have to punch through prepared Russian forces, a much tougher proposition judging by their progress in Kherson.

Zelensky has, optimistically, a month to pull off another significant victory before the weather makes further advances impossible. By the time winter has frozen the ground to the point where tanks are useable he'll have to contend with a Russian force of equal or greater size compared to his own and he'll have a difficult time making further gains short of Russia literally running out of ammo or a WW1 style collapse in morale. Even without the threat of nuclear weapons this could easily become a long, bloody, grinding war.

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https://twitter.com/svtv_news/status/1573726698323025920

"Ukrainian prisoners of war in the DPR were forced to vote in a referendum on joining the Russian Federation.

Due to registration in the Donetsk region, prisoners also “have the right” to vote.

90% turnout, Putin style"

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A protester read an anti-war poem in Moscow. In response, police kidnapped him and tortured him by shoving a dumb bell up his rectum. They then kidnapped his girlfriend and brought her to the next room over to hear the torture while they superglued her mouth shut and threatened her with gang rape.

https://twitter.com/svtv_news/status/1574490380481052674

https://twitter.com/Andrew__Roth/status/1574272320071426049?s=20&t=dVYAl_CQk...

Reminds me of the Belarussian Andrei Zeltser, who obliterated a KGB agent raiding his apartment with a shotgun. Yet another example of why an armed society is the last defense against totalitarianism.

https://twitter.com/MishaKononovich/status/1442919434050433024

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After two days of deliberation Putin has decided to retaliate for the Kerch bridge bombing by launching dozens to hundreds of missiles at cities across Ukraine, apparently prioritizing government buildings, power plants and infrastructure. I guess this is what he meant by "striking decision making centers".

Targets included

Kiev:

https://twitter.com/svtv_news/status/1579346030679986176

https://twitter.com/svtv_news/status/1579346015768834049

https://twitter.com/svtv_news/status/1579369426490904577

https://twitter.com/svtv_news/status/1579368788872826881

https://twitter.com/svtv_news/status/1579363791518982144

https://twitter.com/svtv_news/status/1579359809442566145

https://twitter.com/svtv_news/status/1579377631723950090

https://twitter.com/svtv_news/status/1579375800897662976

Konotop:

https://twitter.com/svtv_news/status/1579370176763826176

Lviv:

https://twitter.com/svtv_news/status/1579374530425782272

Chernigov:

https://twitter.com/svtv_news/status/1579380608622813184

Khmelnitsky:

https://twitter.com/svtv_news/status/1579375899304431616

This is shaping up to be a long and bloody war.

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

So a big problem with the Shahed is, ironically, its slow speed (115 MPH max speed), which is below the stall speed of almost all fixed wing aircraft, plus its low cost making MANPADS ineffecient to use against it. But there is a solution, if we dare to use it.

and I can think of the perfect ace for the job



In other news, an SU-34 crashed into an apartment lock in Yeysk, Krasnodar loaded with ammunition, though the pilot ejected. Whoever caught this picture deserves an award

https://twitter.com/svtv_news/status/1582034844631982082

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When it comes to Transnistria, I personally doubt anything will happen. Everything that's been released all seems like information messaging, probably from intelligence services.

Reading this thread has been a frustrating experience the last few days for people looking for real discussion of this question because it's all been sniping about one particular poster's opinions instead of discussion about Transnistria. The way I see it, there are three possible ways for Transnistria to be incorporated into the Moldovan state:

1) Russian fuel subsidies to Transnistria end, leading the government to collapse.
2) Sheriff voluntarily agrees to dissolve the Transnistrian government and subordinate itself to the Moldovan state.
3) Transnistria is incorporated into Moldova by force.

The first option is certainly possible, and it's difficult to get reliable up-to-date sources on this subject, but it does not appear that Russia has stopped sending free natural gas to Transnistria. This in turn means that it is unlikely to do so in the foreseeable future. Transnistria has not been an ideal partner from the Russian perspective in this current war, but as long as Russia is continuing its offensive war it makes no sense to abandon Transnistria, especially considering how marginal the costs are.

I just don't see how the second option is plausible; even if the Moldovan government is somehow able to offer Sheriff a deal as good as the one it has now (which is hard to conceptualize, given that Sheriff operates by exporting cheap Russian products to the West), what happens when a new government alters the deal? Independence gives Sheriff security.

The third option is probably not inconceivable now, since Moldova appears to have significantly reduced its dependence on cheap Transnistrian electricity over the last year, but I'm not sure whose interests it would be in. Is the propaganda value of a victory over Russians for the Ukrainian government worth the cost of opening up a second front? Would an offensive war have propaganda value for the outside world? Would the Moldovan government really want to try to integrate this territory into its state at this time, especially if it was just the site of a war? It makes a lot more sense for all of this to just be saber-rattling.

There are many very strong military reasons for the Ukrainians to take out Transnistria soon. It would immediately free up several thousand Ukrainian soldiers currently tied down guarding the border. Additionally, Transnistria is home of the Cobasna ammo depot, the former supply hub of the Soviet 14th Guards Army and by some measures the single largest such depot in Europe. That huge supply of crucial artillery and tank rounds could provide the Ukrainians a huge boost at a time when NATO is having a tough time sourcing Warsaw Pact ammunition.

Perhaps most importantly (and a factor I don't see discussed nearly enough) is that right now Moldova has a pro-NATO government, but the next presidential election is next year and if the polls are of any indication the pro-Russian parties are on track for a big win. While 1,500 Russian regulars in Transnistria plus just under 10,000 local militiamen can't do anything so long as they're stuck in landlocked, unrecognized Transnistria, the situation could change rapidly with a Putin friendly regime in Chișinău. At that point Putin's options open up drastically: he could start moving that ammo to Moldova to bring back for his own use, he could offer the Communists Transnistrian integration in exchange for local control (ie. the status quo, but every election Putin's friends mysteriously gain several hundred thousand extra votes) and he could even try using Moldova as a staging ground to send saboteurs and troublemakers across the Carpathians.

The range of responses available to the Ukrainians, in turn, drop dramatically in the face of a hostile but democratically elected Moldova. To avoid such a nightmare scenario I'd imagine nearly any Ukrainian general would be pushing to liquidate the Transnistrians as soon as possible. For the Moldovans the situation is more complicated but the Sandu government frankly doesn't have much to lose and if Transnistria is integrated on Russian terms they'll be politically doomed for the foreseeable future. They'll probably start with a blockade but if that doesn't cut it they'll just have to bite the bullet and call for Ukrainian aid.

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That is so fake and bizzare I don't even know where to begin. Then again false flags aren't meant to convince anyone, but to create a pretext.

In this case it's 100% not a false flag. One of the flag holders is White Rex, the leader of the Russian Volunteer Corps and a notorious neo-Nazi.

Among the ultras of “Cologne” Nikitin was an authority: according to him, he forced the leader to get rid of “foreign elements”. “The former life of the group, where some incomprehensible devils, gypsies and Turks came out, is long gone,” Nikitin said. He advocates “white supremacy” and calls non-white people “Arabs and other monkeys.”

The only outstanding question is exactly how the shootout went down, not who the participants were.

As a side note, while Putin may be a murderous tyrant and ultimate responsibility lies with him, I feel like a lot of Westerners actively avoid uncomfortable information about the various nasty characters fighting alongside the Ukrainians. The literal Neo-Nazis and ultranationalists might not control Ukraine but, like Al-Qaeda in the Soviet-Afghan war, are using the conflict to their own benefit. White Rex already controls his own heavily armed private SS battalion. As the war drags on the depleted regular military forces of both sides will get replaced by mercenaries like Wagner and social media savvy militias like the RVC, a grim sign for PoWs or civilians in the area.

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

That is so fake and bizzare I don't even know where to begin. Then again false flags aren't meant to convince anyone, but to create a pretext.

In this case it's 100% not a false flag. One of the flag holders is White Rex, the leader of the Russian Volunteer Corps and a notorious neo-Nazi.

Among the ultras of “Cologne” Nikitin was an authority: according to him, he forced the leader to get rid of “foreign elements”. “The former life of the group, where some incomprehensible devils, gypsies and Turks came out, is long gone,” Nikitin said. He advocates “white supremacy” and calls non-white people “Arabs and other monkeys.”

The only outstanding question is exactly how the shootout went down, not who the participants were.

As a side note, while Putin may be a murderous tyrant and ultimate responsibility lies with him, I feel like a lot of Westerners actively avoid uncomfortable information about the various nasty characters fighting alongside the Ukrainians. The literal Neo-Nazis and ultranationalists might not control Ukraine but, like Al-Qaeda in the Soviet-Afghan war, are using the conflict to their own benefit. White Rex already controls his own heavily armed private SS battalion. As the war drags on the depleted regular military forces of both sides will get replaced by mercenaries like Wagner and social media savvy militias like the RVC, a grim sign for PoWs or civilians in the area.

The situation is still extremely murky but right now broadly speaking there are four main narratives of what happened:

1. The Official Russian Narrative: A gang of mad terrorists broke across the border, rampaging through the Bryansk countryside and either shot up a school bus or took a bunch of people hostage. After shooting an indeterminate number of innocent people they were driven back across the border, where they were all obliterated by artillery.

2. The  Russian Milblogger Narrative: Two groups of attackers hit the village of Liubuchane, the first engaging Russian forces nearby while the second got photo ops and engaged in some minor sabotage before withdrawing across the border. At some point a car with a 10 year old boy was shot by the attackers: the driver died instantly but the boy survived after surgery at the local hospital. The "sabotage/PR" group escaped in good order, possibly not even taking casualties, but the "assault" group took substantial losses in the retreat or was even sacrificed to allow the others to escape.

3. The RDK/RVC Narrative: Around 50 "Russian Patriots" crossed the border with ease after overcoming a lone border guard. Approaching Liubuchane they managed to ambush two Russian vehicles, engage in some minor sabotage, fly their flag over some local buildings and escape with minimal losses.

4. The WindsofChange Narrative: The FSB were planning a false flag "terrorist attack" implicating the Ukrainians from the start, but the SBU got wind of it. So when the FSB cleared away the Russian army from the area to allow the fake terrorists safe passage to commit fake atrocities the SBU sent the RDK in to attack the FSB, throwing their plan into chaos. A twitter thread explaining this theory:

 https://twitter.com/igorsushko/status/1631360259553132544

The first doesn't pass the smell test on any level. Liubuchane is a tiny village with a population of around 200 that was shrinking even before it became a literal warzone. My understanding is that most people in such border villages evacuated to the cities, so it makes little sense that there would be any significant number of hostages to take. Such an event would also leave direct witnesses and obvious evidence, neither of which has been produced. The closest is the claim that a boy in the Bryansk hospital had NATO caliber bullet removed from his chest, but neither the boy nor the bullet have been revealed. Also, the apparent survival of White Rex and his famous (by internet Neo-Nazi standards, anyway) buddies that were all ID'd in the village suggests that they weren't wiped out by artillery.

While the "FSB/SBU Inside Job" theory explains the bizarre behaviour of pro-Kremlin press around this incident, it has plenty of its own flaws. For one, if the SBU actually clowned an attempted FSB false flag then they'd definitely say so, instead of letting the Kremlin (ineptly try to) control the narrative. It also isn't really clear how a false flag would benefit Putin at this stage; the region has already been shelled and subject to commando raids for months now, the only difference this time is that the attackers openly wore uniforms and yellow armbands while waving rebel flags. Though the response of the SBU has made it pretty clear that the RDK are operating under their control:

https://twitter.com/ColborneMichael/status/1631290725257080834

Which leaves the two plausible scenarios, the one provided by the Russian milbloggers and the one straight from the RDK. Not exactly the best sources but you work with what you have, and the evidence seems to lie somewhere between those two positions. While rooms full of hostages in a tiny dying border village seem implausible, a single car getting caught in a crossfire is believable, as is the possibility that Putin would make it up entirely to cover up the embarrassment of a gang of Instagram Nazis taking over his village and bragging about it online. The RDK could have easily caught local defenders by surprise and taken them out with minimal resistance, or they could have had a hard fought battle that they only escaped with heavy losses. Either story would leave plenty of evidence that will come out over the coming days. But all we have so far is the video of the RDK in the village with gunfire heard some distance away and claims that four Rosguards were injured by a land mine left by the attackers.

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/status/1631242282434215938

EDIT: According to their official Telegram channel the RDK is going to provide a "refutation" of the Russian narrative. Presumably in the form of some good old fashioned Go-Pro combat videos, the essential recruitment tool of any would-be militia in 2023.

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/07/us/politics/nord-stream-pipeline-sabotage-ukraine.html

NYT says pro Ukrainian groups did the nordstream sabotage. Tbh Russia was fairly quiet early on which actually made believe it wasn't a Russian false flag.

Trump was right again ?  I am still skeptical.  I find it hard to believe a non-state actor did this.

Trump said that the Nord Stream 2 sabotage was for sure not Russia and most likely USA.  He also identified Ukraine as a possible suspect but I think there is an issue of capability. 
https://twitter.com/KanekoaTheGreat/status/1629267593453506560

I stand by my initial assessment.

https://twitter.com/Namergate/status/1574780718651265035

Ukrainian or non-state actors are at least slightly more plausible than Putin but simultaneous strikes on multiple underwater targets with several dozen kilograms of military grade TNT would require an enormous amount of funding, coordination and training. They'd also either need to be incredibly lucky or well connected to completely evade detection in the process. I guess it isn't impossible but the simpler explanation is that American intelligence is covering ass, because there's no way they can openly admit to sabotaging German infrastructure.

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

But did that not already happen with the 2003 Iraq War? The main lesson of the Iraq War was that Saddam Hussein's main mistake was that he did NOT manage to get chemical and nuclear weapons.  So any lesson war can teach was already taught back in 2003.

That contributed a good amount too, but at the very least the invasion was not an attempt to outright gain land and was done for political change. Plus it still was done under the pretense of preventing WOMD proliferation, so it sent a mixed message. This was done purely to gain one as can be seen with the annexations, showing not even showing complete compliance with not building WOMDs or nukes/inspections will stop countries from invading you.

I would argue 2003 is worse.   The lesson from the Russia-Ukraine war is "if you have a boundary dispute with a Great Power then you are not safe" but the lesson from Iraq War is "if you have a political system that a Great Power (potentially thousands of miles away) does not like you are not safe."  It seems the risk of the Iraq War is greater since you can count the number of states you have a border with while who knows which Great Power thousands of miles might like your system or your head of state.  Also, the result of the current war can be resolved with the adjustment of boundaries but potentially leaving the current regime intact.  The 2003 Iraq War is a clear example of a maximalist regime change.  So all in all the lessons of 2003 are much more frightening than the Russia-Ukraine war.

The invasion of Iraq, or the seizure of northeastern Syria, or the regime change of Gaddafi, stem not from some moralistic dedication to democracy or "international law" but the ancient principle of "the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must"

Putin's invasion of Ukraine is unlike Iraq not in the weak justification behind it but in the weakness of his forces and the inability to impose whatever regime he pleases onto Kiev as Bush did onto Baghdad.

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

A war between NATO and Russia would definitionally be a world war, yes. The more important point is that it would probably not be a nuclear war, because neither side would have an interest in using nukes. Even if the US sent boots on the ground to Ukraine tomorrow, that wouldn't give Putin any reason to use nukes that he doesn't already have, and the fact that he hasn't chosen to use them in a year of war is evidence enough that he's not going to, posturing aside. And of course, the same is all the more true for Biden. The reality is that nuclear-armed powers are perfectly capable and willing to fight each other conventionally, as indeed they have plenty of times since 1945. While the risk of a nuclear escalation is real and should always keep us up at night, it should be treated as a remote possibility.

It's a good thing Kennedy and Khrushchev didn't have this casual of an attitude towards conflict between nuclear powers or we wouldn't be having this conversation at all. Is it just a strange coincidence that there has literally never been a conventional conflict between nuclear powers? India and Pakistan's wars ended, the US and USSR resorted to proxies and even North Korea became untouchable when their nuclear program achieved success.

Even if both sides want to keep it conventional, the problem is that all you need is a single submarine cut off from communications to make a fateful decision and at that point de-escalation becomes impossible. If Washington, New York, Moscow or Paris were to be obliterated is there any question whether the victim would instantly retaliate? In that situation Putin's rationality becomes irrelevant and the Dead Hand activates regardless.

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

It's a good thing Kennedy and Khrushchev didn't have this casual of an attitude towards conflict between nuclear powers or we wouldn't be having this conversation at all. Is it just a strange coincidence that there has literally never been a conventional conflict between nuclear powers? India and Pakistan's wars ended, the US and USSR resorted to proxies and even North Korea became untouchable when their nuclear program achieved success.

Even if both sides want to keep it conventional, the problem is that all you need is a single submarine cut off from communications to make a fateful decision and at that point de-escalation becomes impossible. If Washington, New York, Moscow or Paris were to be obliterated is there any question whether the victim would instantly retaliate? In that situation Putin's rationality becomes irrelevant and the Dead Hand activates regardless.

Putin said that the West sending armaments to Ukraine would result in nuclear retaliation.

Putin did not resort to nuclear retaliation.

Putin said that NATO membership for Finland and/or Sweden would result in nuclear retaliation.

Putin did not resort to nuclear retaliation.

Putin said that Ukraine retaking Kherson city would result in nuclear retaliation.

Putin did not resort to nuclear retaliation.

Putin said that international attempts to hold Russian civilian-military leadership to account for war crimes since 2014 would result in nuclear retaliation.

Putin did not resort to nuclear retaliation.

It’s almost as if Putin has a pattern of bluffing about Russian nuclear readiness and repeatedly issues “Chinese final warnings”. He has nothing effective or viable enough to manage escalation between zero and nuclear annihilation, and he knows it. The state of the Russian conventional forces is a shamble of its former self, and he knows it. The western world does not take him seriously as a person or as a president, and he knows it. But he can do absolutely nothing about it.

Why are you spending so much time talking about Putin's idle threats? Putin could also say the sky is blue. Just because someone is a liar doesn't mean that everything they say is untrue. I'm talking about reality:

No conventional war has ever been raged between nuclear powers, because it's understood that the risk that it would escalate to a nuclear conflict is, in fact, very high.

Putin doesn't need to make the decision, in an actual war the decision would ultimately fall down to the most paranoid nuclear submarine crew that happened to lose contact with command. America hasn't even risked a direct conflict with North Korea, a regime whose conventional forces are infinitely weaker, whose nuclear stockpile is a fraction that of Russia's and whose threats are even more bombastic. Even a rat while strike back if you force it into a corner.

A war between NATO and Russia would definitionally be a world war, yes. The more important point is that it would probably not be a nuclear war, because neither side would have an interest in using nukes. Even if the US sent boots on the ground to Ukraine tomorrow, that wouldn't give Putin any reason to use nukes that he doesn't already have, and the fact that he hasn't chosen to use them in a year of war is evidence enough that he's not going to, posturing aside. And of course, the same is all the more true for Biden. The reality is that nuclear-armed powers are perfectly capable and willing to fight each other conventionally, as indeed they have plenty of times since 1945. While the risk of a nuclear escalation is real and should always keep us up at night, it should be treated as a remote possibility.

It's a good thing Kennedy and Khrushchev didn't have this casual of an attitude towards conflict between nuclear powers or we wouldn't be having this conversation at all. Is it just a strange coincidence that there has literally never been a conventional conflict between nuclear powers? India and Pakistan's wars ended, the US and USSR resorted to proxies and even North Korea became untouchable when their nuclear program achieved success.

Even if both sides want to keep it conventional, the problem is that all you need is a single submarine cut off from communications to make a fateful decision and at that point de-escalation becomes impossible. If Washington, New York, Moscow or Paris were to be obliterated is there any question whether the victim would instantly retaliate? In that situation Putin's rationality becomes irrelevant and the Dead Hand activates regardless.

Your post illustrates some real risks, but this is wrong. They both had nuclear weapons by the time of the Kargil War.

The Kargil War was basically unconventional, especially compared with any of the wars prior, and was localized to a single mountain on disputed territory. The Pakistanis were vaguely analogous to the Wagner mercenaries that occasionally get into conflict with the US, but we wouldn't call the Battle of Khasham the "US-Russia War of 2018"

[Ⓐnarchy in the ☭☭☭P!]

https://twitter.com/faytuks/status/1665905176140554243?s=12
My god those Russian bastards actually blew the dam

Total humanitarian catastrophe. Absolutely evil act that hurts everyone for no benefit.

https://twitter.com/ThomasVLinge/status/1665913664413528064