Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[All Along The Watchtower]

This is what happens when you constantly stoke the Kremlin's paranoia.

If the US and its NATO allies aren't prepared to send their own citizens over to defend Ukraine, then they should just shut up about "serious consequences" for Russia (more sanctions won't work). I'm tired of this chicken hawkery from geopolitical chess playing Blob suits who have never had to face anything remotely approaching war.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Whatever else one thinks, it is clear that the existing European security architecture has not led to a sense of security for either Russia or Ukraine.

[All Along The Watchtower]

https://twitter.com/DmytroKuleba/status/1497267568461205509
Is Germany the only holdout now?

Lindner said Germany is open to it today

Hm, well he said open to it if all EU countries agree which is a quite convenient bar to set (which even if Italy changes mind, still leaves many aside Germany opposed like Austria, Hungary Bulgaria, I believe NL too was mentioned by evening news yesterday but not 100% sure). This evening he said also said first the implications have to be studied (which EU commission is currently doing) , especially regarding if Russia will still deliver gas as then it will be very hard for them to get paid. Although he also said that simply asking the question of the consequences does not mean exclusion of the option per se, even if the consequences are bad.

Also the Foreign Minister today (who is actually the most Russia-sceptical minister) said that she is sceptical because it makes it very difficult to finance humanitarian projects, from experience when it was done with Iran. I actually think this is pretty pathetic reasoning, because it seems pretty clear that we are going to have to look again at the full bandwidth of our relationship with Russia, including as already demonstrated culture/sport and humanitarian issues are all touched. If the economic price is too high, then be honest.

German FM doubles down on opposition to SWIFT exclusion In Interview tonight:
https://www.tagesschau.de/multimedia/video/video-993977.html

- "The sharpest sword isn't always the smartest"
- too much Collateral Damage, would hit civil society too much, and for instance ordinary Russians in Germany who need to send payments to relatives
- "as the government we also have a responsibility to ensure that the Germans can heat and have electricity"

It can change, but considering she is so adamant (unlike her always sceptical attitude to NS2, which shone through even when she was forced to defend it), I really can't see it happening right now.

What’s German for ‘America First’?

Nazism?

[All Along The Watchtower]

https://twitter.com/ragipsoylu/status/1497322791095484416
Bulgaria closes its airspace to Russian planes. RIA is a Russian news agency, so this is credible. Russian news is not going to make something like this up.

This is surprising.  Bulgaria has always been very pro-Russia historically.  I would have thought they would just take a completely neutral position.

Perhaps they see Putin's deranged aggression for what it is.

[All Along The Watchtower]

[All Along The Watchtower]

Agree. You cannot overstate the morale boost he is providing.

[All Along The Watchtower]

I wonder when this is over, I wonder what will be left of Russia.

If it comes to that there won't be any of us left to wonder about anything.

[All Along The Watchtower]

The thing that gets me re: Putin is that while he has always been a vicious authoritarian, his first two terms as President were by Russian standards, quite successful. His legacy in Russia would have easily been better than Yeltsin’s (admittedly not a high bar, but still). While I certainly don’t think Medvevdev was ever a serious successor, how can anyone who ever wanted Russia to be successful—let alone one of the world’s great powers, worthy of respect and deference—see Putin now as anything other than the man who made Russia a global pariah?

If I were personally invested in a notion of “ Russian greatness”, the kind that the current regime is so big on, I would see Putin and his cronies as ruinous mad fools who have thrown everything away. Their efforts to reassert Russian power and prestige have led them on to the path of North Korea levels of toxicity. Insane.

[All Along The Watchtower]

The thing about war crimes is that sometimes they're hard to define exactly and there are grey areas and complications and technicalities... and sometimes they're incredibly clear-cut. Bombing a theatre sheltering maybe thousands of people would be an example of the latter. Anyway, the grim and ghastly thing is that none of this is necessarily contradictory with the suggestion that Putin is looking for a way out of this mess. Not remotely.

True but committing more war crimes makes it harder for Ukrainians to accept a ceasefire deal. Some of the more hardline Ukrainian paramilitary groups are already decrying the leaked deal in FT and they're not alone.

What is the "leaked deal" and its provenance? I missed that. Thanks.

https://twitter.com/maxseddon/status/1504115012851413000

If this deal happens, hypothetically, do the sanctions end?

I think that depends on the status of the Donbas and Crimea, something that I haven't seen too much about in terms of the chatter related to this possible deal.

Russia will never agree to cede control of those.

[All Along The Watchtower]

https://twitter.com/mfa_russia/status/1510344575591895046?s=21&t=4lVGxjtMuwV...

I’m sure the Czechs require no lectures in betrayal from the Russians; 1968 is well within living  memory.

[All Along The Watchtower]

https://www.twitter.com/lapatina_/status/1512818345489408006

The idiotic "threat of NATO to Russia" as an explanation for why this war is happening arguments need to go away.

Reminder to everyone: the Maidan happened because Ukraine's then-President, under Russian pressure, reneged on his own promise to sign an Association Agreement with the European Union, which is notably not NATO and if we're talking militarily, would be a competitor to NATO that would reduce the level of American influence and control over European security (which the Russians and their sympathizers say they support -- but then they wouldn't have the American bogeyman to justify their own imperialism and threats to Europe).

[All Along The Watchtower]

Really mad at the US Army Air Forces and the War Department to this day, and I petition for them to be dismantled.

[All Along The Watchtower]

What’s the deal with these leftists and “realists” calling for diplomacy with Russia in the name of “peace?” It’s clear that we’re past the point of no return with Putin and the blame lies primarily—no, solely—on his shoulders.

F—k rewarding the aggressor. Kick the Russians out of all of Ukraine.

[All Along The Watchtower]

https://twitter.com/OstapYarysh/status/1538916763399864321

This is probably just copium - and really toxic copium that's bad for Russia's reputation in the developing world, where it isn't (yet) as uniformly in tatters as it is in Europe. If people starve, it'll be in countries that aren't sanctioning Russian grain, and should those people try to flee to Europe, European governments will either have the capacity to take them in or (should political pressure be too high) access to more infrastructure than ever before to heartlessly turn them back. A gas crisis in winter could well lead to reductions in sanctions, but I don't think ending European sanctions on Russia will be the primary release valve for political tension caused by famine.

And furthermore, if I were a Russian government official I would be more focused on the coming fall and winter within Russia as the effect of sanctions really starts to bite the country.

[All Along The Watchtower]

UK intelligence says Russia has lost 55% of its forces in Donbas: https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1629221/russia-outdated-weapons-donbas-dpr-ukraine-forces-ministry-defence-update

b-b-b-but Russia is winning, Ukraine can't go on much longer, they must negotiate with Mr. Putin who is a very reasonable man who will listen to them etc.

[All Along The Watchtower]

UK intelligence says Russia has lost 55% of its forces in Donbas: https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1629221/russia-outdated-weapons-donbas-dpr-ukraine-forces-ministry-defence-update

b-b-b-but Russia is winning, Ukraine can't go on much longer, they must negotiate with Mr. Putin who is a very reasonable man who will listen to them etc.

Imagine that you beleive UK intelligence as some sort of neutral observer in the conflict. Also they didn't even say Russia has lost 55% of its troops, rather it was DNR. And then, if you would actually beleive this, imagine how many UKR lost of its troops since they're retreating and losing ground

I never said that Russia lost 55% of its troops. It’s actually worse for Russia if the fake republics are losing lots of troops, because that means they need to get more directly involved militarily, which in the short term means some slow Russian gains in the Donbas but in the long term means a sustained Russian occupation, which a globally weakened Russia cannot possibly sustain.

Ukrainians won’t surrender regardless of how many of them might die—you can’t put a price on freedom from a brutal aggressor—so it’s a question of how many Russian, Belarusian, and Russian-backed Ukrainian soldiers are going to be expended on behalf of Putin’s ego and Russian nationalist/neo-imperialist pride in general. That is what matters, not whatever “wins” that the Russian side has in the Donbas. And that’s not to mention  the other consequences for Russia—most importantly, that generations of Ukrainians will neither forgive nor forget what has been done to them.

[All Along The Watchtower]

The most credible part of that excerpt:

Still, the election was far from the only consideration in Russia’s retreat, officials said. Military analysts say Russia had few other operational options and had been preparing to pull back for weeks

Occam's Razor: Russian military commanders have been pushing for a retreat from Kherson for weeks, but Putin, as usual, is averse to making tough decisions---especially ones that are tacitly an admission of defeat.

As much as both the US government, the US media, and Western "anti-imperialists" would like to believe otherwise, the US is not actually the Main Character.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Anyway, can we have a moment of silence for the real victims of the Russian war against Ukraine:

Wealthy Russians have increasingly been attempting to avoid being drafted into Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine by applying for citizenship in the Caribbean nation of Grenada.

Russians with the financial means to do so have been applying for citizenship in Grenada through an investment initiative that allows an applicant to receive a passport to the country for a minimum investment of $150,000 or a government approved real estate purchase at a cost of $350,000, Bloomberg reported.

https://www.foxnews.com/world/wealthy-russians-attempting-avoid-putins-military-draft-applying-passports-grenada

[All Along The Watchtower]

Yeah, Scholz doesn’t want to advertise his support for Ukraine too much in Germany. Considering that regarding Moscow, the previous German PM was an appeaser and the one before that is a traitor, concrete support from the Germans is refreshing and much appreciated even if they’re unsatisfactory on the public relations level.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Well the CDU hopeful for Chancellor last time was actually pro-Russia, if anything.

I mean, within the context of pre-2022 German politics? Arguably most German politicians were "pro-Russia" back then, but some have wisened up more than others since February. Or was he like, Schröder-level bad?

Laschet publicly echoed Russian rhetoric over the civil war in Syria, which tells you a few things.

That he didn’t fall for imperialist warmongering globalist pro-ISIS agitprop?

/s

Oh wait, you said this was the CDU hopeful? Well in my experience, a candidate of the Right supporting Russian foreign policy is usually what a lot of people would call a “fascist.” But that’s anecdotal.

[All Along The Watchtower]

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/02/01/world/russia-ukraine-news#russias-bombardment-grows-even-as-its-next-steps-remain-unclear

This story depresses me. The takeaways are:

1. Russia has 350K troops in Ukraine (more than twice the number as the initial invasion force), and another 150K-250K in reserve. The Special Military Operation looks more like full scale war to me. I had no idea such numbers were in play.

2. Russia is and will have difficulty adequately provisioning and arming its much expanded horde of invaders.

3. While the consensus is that Russia wants more Ukrainian land, nobody is quite sure just which land is slated to be in its next course to devour.


I hope it does not prove that the West dithered too long before getting around to training and equipping Ukraine with the more lethal weapons of war that seem to be needed to contend with containing Putin's throwing all his chips on the table to reverse the tide of war in his favor. And it saddens and sickens me with what will be facing Ukraine in the next few months. While so far it has been hell for them in the conflict zone, there are worse places than hell.

It sucks that Ukraine (especially its civilians) are going to have to go through such hell but nothing in the article points to anything that should suggest that Putin’s new offensive is going to result in anything other than sending 100k+ more Russian troops to their deaths

Accelerationism for Putin’s downfall?

[All Along The Watchtower]

Yeah Putin's not that mad.

[All Along The Watchtower]

It's not just disregard for human life and poor medical services.

All wartime casualties are bad news, but at least dead men tell no tales. And dead or wounded, the Kremlin does not want the Russian people to know the true cost, or indeed, any part of the truth, of Mr. Putin's "military special operation" (the cynical euphemism says it all, doesn't it).

Obviously this is not at all like the "Great Patriotic War" in WWII (at the very least, you'd have to reverse Russia's role). It's more like WWI or the Soviet war in Afghanistan. Remind me of the fate of the regimes/systems of government in place in Russia at the time of those wars.

[All Along The Watchtower]

What has happened over the past year should permanently destroy the reputations and careers of a lot of people who insisted that “Putin would never do such a thing, and even if he did what about NATO expansion”, etc.

Alas, it won’t.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Maybe he will also order "Ukrainian" missile strikes against apartment blocks inside Russia, like what occurred shortly before he came to power.

I love how this was so much more plausibly a false-flag terrorist attack than 9/11. And yet 9/11 Truthers tend also to believe and repeat Kremlin propaganda. Go figure.