Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[Person Man]

I’m very strongly anti-war, but seeing the pictures of civilians shot execution style with hands behind their backs and mass graves makes my blood boil. I can’t even imagine what Mariupol looks like. If they continue to find more and more scenes like this, then I would be in favor of sending NATO troops in to directly fight the Russians.

Would that escalate things immensely? Yes. Would it likely lead to a broader war with Russia? Yes. But I’m sorry, if more scenes like today come out as more towns are liberated, I think we have to acknowledge that Kremlin leadership needs to be eliminated from this earth. In the 21st century, having a nation such as Russia engage in acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing simply cannot be tolerated.

Exactly. If a direct intervention leads to WW3, wouldn’t we be glad that a country like Russia no longer exists?

The issue with that is that the US (and Germany, Spain, France and basically every western country) will no longer exist too. If you want to live in Fallout World, well I guess that's your choice, and tbh if it's ever been justified it's now. But it is not a sacrifice I am willing to make.

I will say that if Russia did not have nukes I would 100% be in favour of an intervention though. But is it worth the high risk of the literal Apocalypse?

The risk isn’t absolute. How long do we have to tolerate all of this? How much worse does it need to get?

[CumbrianLefty]

Ah so we are seeing it get closer and closer to the Holocaust. Wonder how much more the doves can stomach. There was no red line, they prefer appeasement at all costs.

I don’t think it’s too dovish to prefer waging a bloodless economic war on Russia, rather than send NATO troops into Ukraine, and risk a nuclear holocaust, that would kill almost every soul in Ukraine, as well as countless civilian lives across the world.

As several posters above have said - it’s understandable to be absolutely enraged by this - I’d be more worried if you weren’t (*cough* compucomp). I’ll confess where there are some days I want NATO planes to fly over the border and destroy as much Russian equipment in UA as possible. But in the current world order, that’s just not an adult or acceptable move. Escalation is a dangerous game, and not one the West is willing to play with Putin.

All we can do now is cut off trade with Russia, shame our allies who haven’t, and try to starve their economy, to show the Russian pubic just how much anger and disdain we have for their autocratic leaders. And do all of this in the hopes that new hands take the reins in the Kremlin sooner rather than later. (Although any Putin replacement could be just as vile. There’s not Boris Yeltsin waiting in the wings this time - just oligarchs and war criminals).

Yeah, but at least they might not be Duginists.

[GoTfan]

Ah so we are seeing it get closer and closer to the Holocaust. Wonder how much more the doves can stomach. There was no red line, they prefer appeasement at all costs.

I know you want to turn the world into a radioactive wasteland and annihilate humanity, but those of us with functioning brains do not. Thankfully, the leaders of the Western nations are far more levelheaded than you.

You're just a troll.

[CumbrianLefty]

Can we at least do away with the "we're doing nothing to help Ukraine" meme.

We are, quite frankly, doing a great deal more than I thought we might when this war started.

[rc18]

Tankie energy strong this morning.

[CumbrianLefty]

Tankie energy strong this morning.

Tankies are sometimes good for a laugh (though somewhat less so this morning) but tbh I am rather more interested in Putin's right wing shills, given they are rather more influential and powerful.

What is their explanation for recent developments? Both military reverses and atrocities.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Can we at least do away with the "we're doing nothing to help Ukraine" meme.

We are, quite frankly, doing a great deal more than I thought we might when this war started.

From the US, Ukraine has been given half the military aid that Israel receives (on average) every year - and in limited forms. With time, that will change - but aside from a few Eastern European countries and Britain, most of the world has done even less (proportionally) and continues to purchase Russian energy. We’ve done a bit for Ukraine, but more for Russia (indirectly), and most of the Ukraine-related defence funding has gone to strengthening of our own defence. This is short-sighted, for Ukraine is the best defence Eastern Europe has at the moment.

[CumbrianLefty]

Can we at least do away with the "we're doing nothing to help Ukraine" meme.

We are, quite frankly, doing a great deal more than I thought we might when this war started.

From the US, Ukraine has been given half the military aid that Israel receives (on average) every year - and in limited forms. With time, that will change - but aside from a few Eastern European countries and Britain, most of the world has done even less (proportionally) and continues to purchase Russian energy. We’ve done a bit for Ukraine, but more for Russia (indirectly), and most of the Ukraine-related defence funding has gone to strengthening of our own defence. This is short-sighted, for Ukraine is the best defence Eastern Europe has at the moment.

Doesn't alter that its still more than many of us expected originally. Even in a crisis like this, inertia is going to influence some things (eg the gas situation)

[Middle-aged Europe]

https://mobile.twitter.com/eucopresident/status/1510542585454022660

[Middle-aged Europe]

In Russian sovereign default news:


https://mobile.twitter.com/A_Melikishvili/status/1509556290196021249

[Lord Halifax]

Reiterating. The facts on the ground have changed in the past month, the basic questions haven't. Personally unlike most of Atlas I quite enjoy being alive. Thus, an >80% of genocide is preferable to the 1-2% chance of a mass extinction event.

I enjoy being alive too, but I still disagree. Having to accept the right of nuclear powers to commit genocide if they want to in order to stay alive is "no way to live" to quote a prolific yellow poster. We need to call Putin's nuclear bluff.

[Oryxslayer]

In Russian sovereign default news:


https://mobile.twitter.com/A_Melikishvili/status/1509556290196021249

The Default question is now an interesting one since the pictures from the liberated regions probably tip EU public opinion towards a gas cutoff/embargo, rather than any roundabout compromises, which will see the Ruble plummet - probably below where it was at the start of the war.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Two points for now. Firstly, the appropriate historical comparison would seem to be Katyn (and related massacres) which appears to have been taken, and this is at once both outrageously disgusting and outrageously arrogant, as a model. Secondly, the awful images that we have seen were uncovered under the circumstances of the rout of the Russian army following its decisive defeat at the Battle of Kyiv/Kiev - this is not a situation in which the Ukrainians are helpless to defend themselves against such atrocities, which makes loose talk of the necessity of direct Western intervention ludicrous as well as risky.

[Hindsight was 2020]

As much as the images sicken me and a part of me wants us to just go in and bomb the Kremlin the fact on the ground is Ukraine is winning so direct military involvement is not really required but we should do even more to get military hardware into Ukraine while further isolating Russia economically

[Middle-aged Europe]

Sonething's afoot in Belgorod.


https://mobile.twitter.com/phildstewart/status/1510585864635752448

[Karpatsky]

Reposting from elsewhere: the anti-'provocation' argument against intervention is popular because it's an easy way to weasel out of thinking too hard about our moral responsibility, not because it makes sense. It is the same argument which has been used since 2008 as an excuse to do nothing to deter Russia, and has failed every time to avoid '''provoking''' escalation from the Russian side.

Something I think has been glossed over in nuanceless 'intervention = nuclear WW3' narrative which is going around everywhere (which the Russian government loves and thanks you for, by the way) is that a NFZ (or, to take a less cliche option, a 'safe zone' enforced by Polish or Romanian troops) does NOT require shooting down Russian planes or targeting Russian SAM sites in Russia or Belarus proper. It requires it if and only if the Russian government makes the decision to contest the NFZ.

This is a functionally a similar move to the Berlin Airlift or the Cuban quarantine - it places the Russians in the position to have to choose to directly attack NATO forces. If anything, this would be a more difficult decision for them to make than those previous cases because of NATO's much greater conventional superiority and because the Russian air force is very explicitly not welcome by Ukraine's legitimate government.

The 'steel man' version of the belief that Putin would take the plunge on this is: Putin and his clique's primary goal is to remain in power, not to ensure the Russian state's best interests (true). Losing the war in Ukraine would weaken his grip on power (probably true to some degree). Therefore, winning the war in Ukraine is an existential question for him, if not for the Russian state. It is therefore plausible that he would use nuclear weapons to avoid losing.

Here is the uncomfortable problem with this argument which I think a lot of people making it want to ignore: the West has 0 control over whether World War III begins or not, or whether the Russian government uses nuclear weapons or not, or what Putin and people like him consider 'existential'. The end state of this argument is to continue rolling over every time a nuclear dictator takes a plunge like this so he won't have to take an L in front of his people. After all, if Ukraine isn't worth risking nuclear war, why would Estonia be? Or West Germany? Or France?

Maybe you think in some mathematical sense this is the best way to ensure the survival of the human race across the next few millennia of nuclear crises. Given it encourages future aggression, I think this is a naive view. Reducing the percent risk of war in each crisis doesn't help if at the same time it increases the likelihood of a crisis happening. The only way to really reduce the risk is to stop dictators from rolling the dice through reliably strong deterrence every time crises do arise.

In any case, it's no way to live.

[GoTfan]

Reposting from elsewhere: the anti-'provocation' argument against intervention is popular because it's an easy way to weasel out of thinking too hard about our moral responsibility, not because it makes sense. It is the same argument which has been used since 2008 as an excuse to do nothing to deter Russia, and has failed every time to avoid '''provoking''' escalation from the Russian side.

Something I think has been glossed over in nuanceless 'intervention = nuclear WW3' narrative which is going around everywhere (which the Russian government loves and thanks you for, by the way) is that a NFZ (or, to take a less cliche option, a 'safe zone' enforced by Polish or Romanian troops) does NOT require shooting down Russian planes or targeting Russian SAM sites in Russia or Belarus proper. It requires it if and only if the Russian government makes the decision to contest the NFZ.

This is a functionally a similar move to the Berlin Airlift or the Cuban quarantine - it places the Russians in the position to have to choose to directly attack NATO forces. If anything, this would be a more difficult decision for them to make than those previous cases because of NATO's much greater conventional superiority and because the Russian air force is very explicitly not welcome by Ukraine's legitimate government.

The 'steel man' version of the belief that Putin would take the plunge on this is: Putin and his clique's primary goal is to remain in power, not to ensure the Russian state's best interests (true). Losing the war in Ukraine would weaken his grip on power (probably true to some degree). Therefore, winning the war in Ukraine is an existential question for him, if not for the Russian state. It is therefore plausible that he would use nuclear weapons to avoid losing.

Here is the uncomfortable problem with this argument which I think a lot of people making it want to ignore: the West has 0 control over whether World War III begins or not, or whether the Russian government uses nuclear weapons or not, or what Putin and people like him consider 'existential'. The end state of this argument is to continue rolling over every time a nuclear dictator takes a plunge like this so he won't have to take an L in front of his people. After all, if Ukraine isn't worth risking nuclear war, why would Estonia be? Or West Germany? Or France?

Maybe you think in some mathematical sense this is the best way to ensure the survival of the human race across the next few millennia of nuclear crises. Given it encourages future aggression, I think this is a naive view. Reducing the percent risk of war in each crisis doesn't help if at the same time it increases the likelihood of a crisis happening. The only way to really reduce the risk is to stop dictators from rolling the dice through reliably strong deterrence every time crises do arise.

In any case, it's no way to live.

Holy cow the level of wishful thinking in this post is insane.

Russia will contest any NFZ, which means NATO and RUssia shooting at each other, which means WW3, which means nuclear war.

This shouldn't be hard to grasp but alas, some people would rather turn Threads into reality. This is a hell of a bluff to call, and if you get it it wrong-and I suspect everyone saying we need to call it a bluff is getting it spectacularly wrong-then congrats, you've doomed the entire human race.

[Karpatsky]

Russia will contest any NFZ,

Or so they would like you to believe.

which means NATO and RUssia shooting at each other,

Or so they would like you to believe.

which means WW3,

Or so they would like you to believe.

which means nuclear war.

Or so they would like you to believe.

Deterrence is in the mind of the adversary. Each of these steps has many off-ramps and opportunity for deescalation, but this requires the adversary believe there will be consequences for not doing so. If you don't have what it takes to call a non-credible bluff the adversary wins by default. I'm sure the coward's way out seems more reasonable from your safe home in Australia, but:

1. Dead people are dead no matter how they die. The women being raped and murdered are not comforted by the fact that you think preventing it would have been too risky for you.

2. Aggressors have to be stopped somewhere. If it isn't done here, it will have to be done at higher cost and carrying higher risk elsewhere. The only reason we are subject to the risks we are now is because we failed to deter aggression earlier, in Georgia, Crimea, and Donbas. The best solution for avoiding conflict in the long run is to reestablish deterrence as early and credibly as humanly possible. Failing to do so increases the risk of great power conflict in the long run, including nuclear war.

[compucomp]

As several posters above have said - it’s understandable to be absolutely enraged by this - I’d be more worried if you weren’t (*cough* compucomp). I’ll confess where there are some days I want NATO planes to fly over the border and destroy as much Russian equipment in UA as possible. But in the current world order, that’s just not an adult or acceptable move. Escalation is a dangerous game, and not one the West is willing to play with Putin.

I'll largely hold my tongue on this because if I don't I'm in danger of getting banned due to "genocide denial" or something like that, but I read the update on CNN and saw that there were "20 bodies of civilian men" found on the street in Bucha. There were probably around 20 people that got shot dead in Chicago yesterday.

[😥]

What I read here makes me angry and sad at the same time. I do not know why you can not understand that the strategy of "not to provoke Russia" does not work. This strategy does not work at all, because it does not need to be provoked. If Putin decides to start a nuclear war, he will start it, regardless of whether you impose a no-fly zone, whether you provide Ukraine with fighters, or whether you provide Ukraine with tanks. In addition, no one is asking about the NFZ or NATO soldiers here. Nobody asks for it. Is it so difficult for you to provide fighter jets to Ukraine? Here's what you need. Is it so hard for you to do that? I am annoyed when some "experts" say that Ukraine does not need fighter jets, but Stinger instead. Ukraine knows better what it needs. Help Ukraine defeat Russia, because if Ukraine does not survive, you will be next. Ukraine is now fighting for the opportunity to exist as such, the opportunity to live freely on their land and a bright future for their children. But in addition, Ukraine is also fighting for values ​​and for your security. This is not just our war.

The West turned a blind eye to Russia's war crimes in Chechnya and continued to trade with it. The West turned a blind eye to the killings of oppositionists in Russia - and continued to trade with it. The West turned a blind eye to Russia's war in Georgia - and continued to trade with it. The West turned a blind eye to Russia's annexation of Crimea and the occupation of Donbass - and continued to trade with it. Yes, the West has now imposed unprecedented sanctions, but they are not enough. They are not enough to stop Russia - and you continue to trade with it. While Minister Lindner is worried that the "welfare of the people of Germany" will be affected, civilians are being killed in Ukraine.

Do you know that I will never forget? I will not forget the voice of a 5-year-old child who said, "Mom, why am I in so much pain? I behaved well" - and died in her mother's arms. I will never forget the raped girls aged 10-15 who were raped in front of the public. You can talk about it for a long time. And now I do not want to list all the war crimes of the Russian military. I just want to convey that by buying Russian energy, Western countries are financing the genocide of Ukrainians.

You can't imagine how hurt we are when another Western politician says, "We need to keep trading with Russia," or "both sides are to blame." You can't imagine how it hurts us when we are once again denied a certain type of weapon, which we really need. We have always felt part of Europe, we have always wanted to be with Europe. But now, for many Western politicians, Russian money is more expensive than the lives of tens of thousands of Ukrainians.

And lastly, the argument "Ukraine cannot be supported [in some way], because it will provoke a nuclear war - is absolutely immoral, because you are declaring the right of nuclear-weapon states to destroy other nations, to destroy other countries. There must be a limit to everything."

And as a girl from Mariupol said: "It's scary - it's not when you're afraid of nuclear war, it's scary - it's when you don't know how to explain to your younger brother, who is swollen with hunger, why his mother will never speak again."

P.S. I wrote using Google Translator, because I did not have time to write the text in English. Therefore, there may be errors in the wording of sentences

[sting in the rafters]

Reiterating. The facts on the ground have changed in the past month, the basic questions haven't. Personally unlike most of Atlas I quite enjoy being alive. Thus, an >80% of genocide is preferable to the 1-2% chance of a mass extinction event.

I enjoy being alive too, but I still disagree. Having to accept the right of nuclear powers to commit genocide if they want to in order to stay alive is "no way to live" to quote a prolific yellow poster. We need to call Putin's nuclear bluff.

1. How is sending missiles, food, tanks, etc. tantamount to "accepting the right of nuclear powers to commit genocide"?
2. North Korea's an actual genocidal state but nobody wants to do anything about it because they have nukes and the refugee crisis it would cause. Using your logic why don't we go and liberate Pyongyang?
3. What obligations does the US, or any NATO member for that matter, have to guarantee the sovereignty of Ukraine (and don't say Budapest. Budapest was an agreement with Russia and as we know, agreements signed with Russia are worth the paper they are printed on)?
4. Why are we so willing to drop a fat stack on some flat country 5,000 miles away when we got Inflation at 8%, over 35 million facing food insecurity, the national debt is 1/1 with GDP, and half a million going bankrupt from medical bills? Haven't we nation-built enough?


And if you're referring to whom I think you're referring to, a utilitarian like Dule is not the person you want to ask if they find genocide preferable to omnicide.

[😥]

As several posters above have said - it’s understandable to be absolutely enraged by this - I’d be more worried if you weren’t (*cough* compucomp). I’ll confess where there are some days I want NATO planes to fly over the border and destroy as much Russian equipment in UA as possible. But in the current world order, that’s just not an adult or acceptable move. Escalation is a dangerous game, and not one the West is willing to play with Putin.

Post removed by moderator.

As I told the other person here, I just want you to know that you are an immoral person. The atrocities of the Russian army in Ukraine are worse than the atrocities of the Nazis in World War II (even eyewitnesses of both wars say so). And, by the way, at least 409, not 20, civilians were killed only in Bucha. I am already silent about Mariupol, where at least 5,000 people died

[pppolitics]

Reposting from elsewhere: the anti-'provocation' argument against intervention is popular because it's an easy way to weasel out of thinking too hard about our moral responsibility, not because it makes sense. It is the same argument which has been used since 2008 as an excuse to do nothing to deter Russia, and has failed every time to avoid '''provoking''' escalation from the Russian side.

Something I think has been glossed over in nuanceless 'intervention = nuclear WW3' narrative which is going around everywhere (which the Russian government loves and thanks you for, by the way) is that a NFZ (or, to take a less cliche option, a 'safe zone' enforced by Polish or Romanian troops) does NOT require shooting down Russian planes or targeting Russian SAM sites in Russia or Belarus proper. It requires it if and only if the Russian government makes the decision to contest the NFZ.

This is a functionally a similar move to the Berlin Airlift or the Cuban quarantine - it places the Russians in the position to have to choose to directly attack NATO forces. If anything, this would be a more difficult decision for them to make than those previous cases because of NATO's much greater conventional superiority and because the Russian air force is very explicitly not welcome by Ukraine's legitimate government.

The 'steel man' version of the belief that Putin would take the plunge on this is: Putin and his clique's primary goal is to remain in power, not to ensure the Russian state's best interests (true). Losing the war in Ukraine would weaken his grip on power (probably true to some degree). Therefore, winning the war in Ukraine is an existential question for him, if not for the Russian state. It is therefore plausible that he would use nuclear weapons to avoid losing.

Here is the uncomfortable problem with this argument which I think a lot of people making it want to ignore: the West has 0 control over whether World War III begins or not, or whether the Russian government uses nuclear weapons or not, or what Putin and people like him consider 'existential'. The end state of this argument is to continue rolling over every time a nuclear dictator takes a plunge like this so he won't have to take an L in front of his people. After all, if Ukraine isn't worth risking nuclear war, why would Estonia be? Or West Germany? Or France?

Maybe you think in some mathematical sense this is the best way to ensure the survival of the human race across the next few millennia of nuclear crises. Given it encourages future aggression, I think this is a naive view. Reducing the percent risk of war in each crisis doesn't help if at the same time it increases the likelihood of a crisis happening. The only way to really reduce the risk is to stop dictators from rolling the dice through reliably strong deterrence every time crises do arise.

In any case, it's no way to live.

Holy cow the level of wishful thinking in this post is insane.

Russia will contest any NFZ, which means NATO and RUssia shooting at each other, which means WW3, which means nuclear war.

This shouldn't be hard to grasp but alas, some people would rather turn Threads into reality. This is a hell of a bluff to call, and if you get it it wrong-and I suspect everyone saying we need to call it a bluff is getting it spectacularly wrong-then congrats, you've doomed the entire human race.

We already know that you are the incarnation of Neville Chamberlain.

[Hindsight was 2020]

Good to see you’re alright andjey 🙂

[Estrella]

4. Why the f--- should the US look to increase combat operations when we're already broke?

This is the American version of a Russian devushka crying about the end of Instagram while Ukrainians die.