Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[emailking]

The video, omg. I hope s/he makes it.

[Alcibiades]

Just waking up to this absolutely awful news. It makes my blood boil that so many innocent people are going to die for no good reason other than the insanity of one very deeply evil man. I can only offer my sincerest best wishes to the people of Ukraine.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

https://twitter.com/DeItaone/status/1496770643236638724

[T'Chenka]

https://twitter.com/DeItaone/status/1496770643236638724

There isn't going to be a Ukrainian nation by the time it gets accepted into the UN.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Artillery strike in Uman, Cherkassy

It is particularly sad to read that. Uman for example is a place where in 1941, Russian and Ukrainian soldiers fought together side by side and were encircled by the early German advance into the Soviet Union. And now some of their grandsons/great grandsons are attacking their other grandsons/great grandsons, in the same places.

For shame.

This may as well be the war in a nutshell. Two peoples who together basically dominated the Soviet Union's upper echelons now at war with each other, fighting partially with weapons from that time, on ground they once defended together.
The collapse of the Soviet Union was the biggest reordering to the geopolitical order in Eastern Europe since the Partitions of Poland.

[Storr]

https://twitter.com/ThomasVLinge/status/1496758871108440070?s=20&t=rilz3k2sq...

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

https://twitter.com/DeItaone/status/1496773025832009728

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Zelensky is a great guy. I hope he survives this war politically. Even if Ukraine gets carved up, it wouldn't be his fault, but rather the sum of decades of growing mistrust between Putin and American administrations.
Ukraine is but one chess piece without much autonomy on the world stage overall.

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

https://twitter.com/MFA_Ukraine/status/1496774970097254403

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

FT: Ukraine reports battles with Russian forces in east and south

Ukraine has reported fierce battles with invading Russian forces from eastern and southern regions of the country.

“Four tanks of the Russian occupiers were burnt on the bypass road of Kharkiv” and eastern Ukrainian city close to the Russian border, the general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces said in a statement on Thursday.

“About 50 Russian occupiers were killed in the Schastya area” of eastern Ukraine north of Russian-backed separatist stronghold Luhansk.

“In addition, another plane of the armed forces of the Russian Federation was destroyed in the Kramatorsk region. This is the sixth,” the statement read.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s border guard service said that Russian helicopters are firing at Ukrainian servicemen in the southern Black Sea town of Skadovsk, killing three border guards and wounding others.

“Despite this, border guards are fighting the occupier,” the border guard service said in the statement.

The service said other battles were under way in other parts of the southern Kherson region bordering the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula.

[Hnv1]

Why are the Ukrainians so badly spread at the northern border? no contact with Russian columns moving in

[Yoda]

https://twitter.com/DeItaone/status/1496770643236638724

There isn't going to be a Ukrainian nation by the time it gets accepted into the UN.

My thought as well this seems just a weeee bit late to have any meaning.

[Storr]

Why are the Ukrainians so badly spread at the northern border? no contact with Russian columns moving in

From Poland east to Luhansk, Ukraine's northern border with Belarus and Russia is 1,200 kilometers. That's nearly impossible to defend everywhere when you're also facing attack from the east and south as well.

[Hnv1]

Why are the Ukrainians so badly spread at the northern border? no contact with Russian columns moving in

From Poland east to Luhansk, Ukraine's northern border with Belarus and Russia is 1,200 kilometers. That's nearly impossible to defend everywhere when you're also facing attack from the east and south.

I disagree. there are natural choke points and with good planning, you can use infantry to block most important routes. the Ukraine does not lack in menpower

[Helsinkian]

Why are the Ukrainians so badly spread at the northern border? no contact with Russian columns moving in

From Poland east to Luhansk, Ukraine's northern border with Belarus and Russia is 1,200 kilometers. That's nearly impossible to defend everywhere when you're also facing attack from the east and south.

I disagree. there are natural choke points and with good planning, you can use infantry to block most important routes. the Ukraine does not lack in menpower

Reserves were mobilized yesterday. That should have been done weeks ago.

[Velasco]

Footage of the Russian invasion

https://twitter.com/eldiarioes/status/1496777922899709953?t=1C7tOD_gR-hCUYcUqiIu...

This is a terrible day that we won't forget

[Storr]

https://twitter.com/RALee85/status/1496759859487940609?s=20&t=R5Wp4zS3TMPxIz...

If this is in Genichesk it means Russians have already crossed the bridge (unopposed?) that separates this part of Ukraine from Crimea. Tors aren't amphibious.

[Storr]

https://twitter.com/Osinttechnical/status/1496784038274686976?s=20&t=vNwxsQo...

[Blue3]

My only worry is if Russia interprets Poland becoming sanctuary for retreating Ukrainian forces counts as an "act of aggression," and it goes to war with Poland thinking NATO couldn't be invoked.

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

Waking up to this terrible news. 

There's not much more I can say that others haven't, but sincerely thinking of all of those who have had (and will have) their lives completely changed and uprooted.

 

[President Johnson]

Time for Iran level sanctions. The West must do everything below military action to take Putin's regime down at this point. He's a threat to global safety and a war criminal.

EU officials and Chancellor Scholz also just announced "crippling sanctions" that will be announced soon. EU officials even discuss the possibility of stopping gas imports from Russia.

Furthermore, Zelensky asked Turkey to close the Bosporus for all Russian ships, cutting off access to the Mediterranean Sea. I hope Turkey follows through.

[DavidB.]

This is the end of the post-Cold War era in terms of geopolitics and possibly the biggest testcase for the Western "liberal institutionalist" approach towards international politics to date. If there are no credible sanctions, that approach is over. And China will invade Taiwan this year still.

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

It will be the end of Putin.

[jaichind]

I am confused about how Putin can sell this domestically.   His new line is that the Ukraine government is an illegal regime.  He could have said that in 2014 and done this and at least there would be some logic to his reasoning.  But until recently that was not his line even internally.  How does he explain to the Russian people what is different now versus a few months ago?   

Also, he said NATO crossed the red line.  He could have said that during the last couple of rounds of NATO expansion. But is not clear what NATO did in the last few weeks to "cross the red line".  What he could have done is to give an ultimatium to NATO to legally preclude Ukraine from joining NATO by a certain date and not doing so crosses his red line.  If he did that there would be some logic to his current actions.  But he did not do that either.

I do not think the Russian population would view these actions as logical. 

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

This is the end of the post-Cold War era in terms of geopolitics and possibly the biggest testcase for the Western "liberal institutionalist" approach towards international politics to date. If there are no credible sanctions, that approach is over. And China will invade Taiwan this year still.

You could quite likely be right.
I would agree this is probably the biggest test of liberal internationalism to date.
The problem with any sanctions is that Russia is much, much better prepared than in 2014. The biggest winners in case of sanctions is in fact China, as it eats more business that other countries would get. Unless NATO countries are willing to do the most severe sanctions and for about a decade or more, I have doubts we see actual results.
Liberal institutionalism needs to be malleable and flexible or else it will begin to fail. If it begins to fail, that failing would likely start now.