Russia / Ukraine Watch

[tuffers#1]

[StockholmO]

Reports that the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant is on fire after coming under Russian attack.

[tuffers#1]

Russian Rappers cancel concerts
In protest against war

[tuffers#1]

Nucler power plant shelled , buildings ablaze . Emergency services allowed to control fire & all is good .. It seems like P*tin really wants more than Ukraine ! He really needs to be erased from life .

[Dunners]

Nothing like the shelling of a nuclear power plant to keep us on our toes.

[The Mindsweep]

Looks like the choice is that it will end very badly very quickly or it will go on for a very long time, with media and public weariness kicking in.

[RedDwarf 1881]

Looks like the choice is that it will end very badly very quickly or it will go on for a very long time, with media and public weariness kicking in.

if I was a betting man and with Putin in power I'd say it would be the former.

[Dunners]

It'll be the latter.

Despite the deserved criticisms of the Russian military and war preparations, they will eventually block off all access to the Black Sea. Once they've done that, they can focus their efforts on closing off access to the Polish, Slovakian and Hungarian borders. I also fully expect them to move on Moldova and seal off access to Romania too.

That will then leave them trying to supress a hostile and well-equipped insurgency in Ukraine. It will drag on, possibly for years, with devastating effects on civilians. While everyone is (finally) doing what they can to support them, there was always going to come a point when Ukraine would be lost. The harsh, but sensible, thing for NATO members to do is to exploit the opportunity presented by Russia being bogged and invest in our militaries now.

[Ronnie Hotdogs]

While everyone is (finally) doing what they can to support them,

Doing everything we can do, other than actually letting refugees come here.

[Ronnie Hotdogs]

The harsh, but sensible, thing for NATO members to do is to exploit the opportunity presented by Russia being bogged and invest in our militaries now.

Yes! More rockets and bombs!

[E10EU]

For all the governments claims and posturing about being "world beating", they are in no hurry to impose sanctions on the oligarchs:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... -at-acting

[Dunners]

The harsh, but sensible, thing for NATO members to do is to exploit the opportunity presented by Russia being bogged and invest in our militaries now.

Yes! More rockets and bombs!

I know. If only everyone could just get along.

[Max B Gold]

The harsh, but sensible, thing for NATO members to do is to exploit the opportunity presented by Russia being bogged and invest in our militaries now.

Yes! More rockets and bombs!

Looks like he's moved out of Bitofacon and into armaments manufacturers.

[Dunners]

The harsh, but sensible, thing for NATO members to do is to exploit the opportunity presented by Russia being bogged and invest in our militaries now.

Yes! More rockets and bombs!

Looks like he's moved out of Bitofacon and into armaments manufacturers.

On the plus side, we may finally start seeing some decent returns on our green tech investments.

[Max B Gold]

It'll be the latter.

Despite the deserved criticisms of the Russian military and war preparations, they will eventually block off all access to the Black Sea. Once they've done that, they can focus their efforts on closing off access to the Polish, Slovakian and Hungarian borders. I also fully expect them to move on Moldova and seal off access to Romania too.

That will then leave them trying to supress a hostile and well-equipped insurgency in Ukraine. It will drag on, possibly for years, with devastating effects on civilians. While everyone is (finally) doing what they can to support them, there was always going to come a point when Ukraine would be lost. The harsh, but sensible, thing for NATO members to do is to exploit the opportunity presented by Russia being bogged and invest in our militaries now.

Although Moldova (where ever that is, probably next to Ruritania and no doubt part of the House of Burgundy) is not a NATO member but officially neutral a move on it by President Putin, the stone mad Russian dictator and all round bad guy might just be too much for NATO countries to take.

The Jerries will need time to rearm and should be ready to march on Moscow and St Petersburg by December.

[Dunners]

Heh.

The Jerries have been the economic and political power at the heart of Europe. They are now going to also become the military power at the heart of Europe.

Having read a few history books, I'm going to go out on a limb here and predict that 10 to 20 years from now, the German pivot away from pacifism will be the most significant moment* in this crisis.

*Assuming the nukes don't start flying, of course.

[Long slender neck]

I dont know what Putin expects to gain from all this. After they've blown Ukraine to bits and its under Russian control, will they rebuild it?

[Dunners]

They do not have the ability to. I don't think anyone is able to rationalise what Putin has done. Not even Putin.

But, something about "both sides" blah blah blah....

[Max B Gold]

I dont know what Putin expects to gain from all this. After they've blown Ukraine to bits and its under Russian control, will they rebuild it?

Putin, like that fat blonde khunt Johnson, just wants to be world king. He and his ex KGB/Mafia crew want to re-establish the Russian Empire and for it to resume its rightful place as a respected super power.

It's in response to the robber barons and thieves of the West and the Yeltsin/Abramovich cohort of kleptocrats helping themselves to the countries riches after the fall of the Soviet Union. The state coffers were emptied and the country humiliated on the world stage. The people were impoverished. The kleptocrats took over. Democracy was binned

The West took advantage of this weakness through NATO expansion right up to the Russian border. Putin got very annoyed about that and started the fight back using the greed of the capitalist class against the West to corrupt its democracies and their institutions.

[Long slender neck]

Is Putin a 'kleptocrat'?

[Max B Gold]

Is Putin a 'kleptocrat'?

You could call him a theiving khunt instead if you don't know what a kleptocrat is.

[Dunners]

The West took advantage of this weakness through NATO expansion right up to the Russian border.

The sneaky evil West. Making all those eastern European countries feel threatened by Russia and fancy pursuing a path that enables greater prosperity and security instead. If only we hadn't interfered and manipulated their feeble minds, Putin would instead be devoting himself to world peace and the development of all humankind instead.

[Max B Gold]

The West took advantage of this weakness through NATO expansion right up to the Russian border.

The sneaky evil West. Making all those eastern European countries feel threatened by Russia and fancy pursuing a path that enables greater prosperity and security instead. If only we hadn't interfered and manipulated their feeble minds, Putin would instead be devoting himself to world peace and the development of all humankind instead.

At the time NATO was expanding and bringing former Warsaw Pact countries under its influence Russia was not a military threat. Its military was starved of resources and cash because the state was being stripped of its assets by the West and kleptocrats and was unable to maintain a viable military threat.

The geopolitical move should have been to disband NATO, have the forner Warsaw Pact countries as neutral, promoted democracy and growth in the former USSR and stop the theiving of the states assets.

I can understand why the Eastern European countries sought protection from Russia but the historical context is of the West pushing home economic and military advantage just because they could.

[greyhound]

arrest Putin and his cronies for war crimes.
do tell though who is going into Russia to get them.

[Dunners]

Let me just open this can of multi-quote:

At the time NATO was expanding and bringing former Warsaw Pact countries under its influence...

Or; "At the time former Warsaw Pact countries were freely choosing to join NATO..."

...Russia was not a military threat.

Russia was an unstable nuclear-armed state right on their borders. It had a history of aggressive expansion and Eastern Europeans would have been stupid to not foresee a time when a threat would re-emerge. It turns out that they were not stupid after all, and seeking collective security was an entirely sensible policy.

Except Ukraine, that is. Ukraine trusted Russia to respect its borders in exchange for giving up its nuclear weapons. That's a lesson learned, and in particular by the other eastern Europeans.

Its military was starved of resources and cash because the state was being stripped of its assets by the West and kleptocrats...

I'm going to suggest that the sneaky evil West wasn't really the baddie in all this, however this is irrelevant because...

...and was unable to maintain a viable military threat.

I must be imaging the 190,000 troops currently plundering into Ukraine then. It may not have been a viable threat within a very limited window of time, but that was never going to remain the case.

I think you're imagining a reality whereby Russia developing into a modern, open, liberal democracy was ever a realistic outcome. Perhaps most of us did at the time. It would have been great, sure, but I think that greater experts than you or I, and others with more at stake, calculated that it was never going to happen.

The geopolitical move should have been to disband NATO,

I've already commented on this when I tore your Chomsky article to shreds.

have the forner Warsaw Pact countries as neutral,

Now who has the imperialist mind-set? How about we let the former Warsaw Pact countries decide for themselves?

promoted democracy and growth in the former USSR and stop the theiving of the states assets.

Yeah. Just like that.

I can understand why the Eastern European countries sought protection from Russia...

Good. We're making progress.

but the historical context is of the West pushing home economic and military advantage just because they could.

The West promoted the benefits of its way of life. But why not? Why is that always framed as a bad thing? There will always be competing views for how to organise and run a territory. Based on all the viable options being implemented in the world today, for all its faults, I'd still choose our way of life over just about any other.

We didn't put a gun to anyone's head and force them to join in. They asked to. They weighed up their options and decided that what we have is pretty damn good.