Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

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And we have an update on who’s supporting Russia! To the surprise of exactly no one, in addition to Syria, Belarus, Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela have come out in support of Russia. Gee, there’s a shining example of stalwart anti-imperialist states opposed to violations of national sovereignty. And they’re such paragons of human rights as well! Truly they’re exactly the type of company one should keep for those champions of revolution worldwide.

China has stayed mute.

So is Vietnam.

Vietnam will stay neutral. They want America’s friendship for economic and security reasons but they are very pro Russia. A huge portion of the Vietnamese elite was educated there during Soviet times.

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I hope Biden leads the west in doing everything we can to destroy the Russian economy.

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Won’t Sactions just cripple the lives of everyday Russians instead of actually ending the war?

Hopefully it hurts their lives enough that they stop supporting Putin.

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

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

They have your government in their pocket to prevent any serious consequences.

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

They’re not waiting for anything. They have no intention of hurting Russia. Russia owns them because they embraced the green agenda.

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Does anyone have a good source for the progress of the battle? It seems like there just isn’t any information at all which is to be expected but presumably there is massive fighting happening right?

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With all of this western weaponry coming in, could Ukraine start hitting more military targets inside Russia/Belarus?

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Would the fall of Kiev be the end of the conventional war or do we anticipate continued conventional resistance in the west?

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Map of results of UN vote condemning Russia. China's influence in this conflict is very obvious and they are not behaving as the "neutral" party they wish others to believe (hello there, African investments!):

India excepted the yellow and red on that map make a pretty good approximation of the respective Chinese and Russian SoI.

And Vietnam, which hates China and is closely aligned with the US these days on most Asian matters. Not sure what they think about Russia, though.

Vietnam is neutral in this conflict. They are very pro-Russia, and the current elite of the country was educated in the USSR.

Yes this is right. They are more pro Russia than they are anti China. I have a Vietnamese relative who studied in Kiev during Soviet times and I know better than to bring up the current situation with him.

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This is beginning to have many parallels to the Greek War for Independence. A small European country battling a large power on the periphery of Europe, inspiring Europeans to go fight.

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Assuming Ukraine emerges as a sovereign and democratic state, it will be impossible for it not to acquire Japan-style nuclear threshold status - no nukes officially, but the ability to build a sizeable arsenal if the government gives an order within a few weeks. And once that happens, it will be impossible to convince Iran not to build nukes. Non- proliferation will be all but dead.

I couldn't agree more. I've been thinking for a while now that the logical conclusion to the line of thinking from people that constantly say we can't put one American boot on the ground in Ukraine or give them one American fighter jet is that the only way Ukraine's security will ultimately be secured is if they have nuclear missiles pointed at Moscow. If Ukraine is never allowed to fight back across russian borders, and no other Ukraine ally can strike at targets in russia (b/c that will guarantee instant nuclear holocaust we're told) to prevent them from launching missiles into Ukraine, ultimately that's the only sure-fire deterrent they are left with. To be clear, this does not make me happy; I'm a huge proponent of nuclear NON-proliferation. I want more and more START treaties until there are no more nuclear weapons. But what do we expect Ukraine to do? If Russian ends up permanently annexing Crimea and given that Putin already has control of Belarus, going forward Ukraine will be about 3/4 surrounded by hostile butchers. Russia uses their nuclear stockpile to get away with atrocities; the logical outcome of the rest of the world allowing this to happen is that countries targeted by the russian war crime machine won't be safe until they have the nuclear capacity to wipe russia off the face of the earth if russia dares invade them.

As they say, watch this space.

And yes, Russia having the capacity to blow up the world is real and can't be wished away.

Yes that is their unfortunate Trump card. I expect at least ten new countries to acquire nuclear weapons in the coming decade. Also, I like your signature. Not very often I get to see a reference to Van Der Graf Generator.

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The leftist president of Colombia retweeted an RT propagandist and commemorated a Colombian communist fighter who died for Russia.
https://twitter.com/petrogustavo/status/1586170190882119680

Can we just coup this moron already? The South American left are the most useless group of people on earth.

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Japanese PM Fumio Kishida made a surprise visit to Ukraine in a show of support to counter China.