Hard to say. As Russia claims that Crimea is Russia this would something which qualifies as an existential threat to Russia, which would under their doctrine allow nuclear strikes. However the question is, is that really something Russia wants? Escalating to a nuclear war could provoke far more severe consequences than they experienced so far.
Look above, Zelensky made a statement that liberating Crimea is officially a Ukrainian goal for this war now.
What do you mean "now"? When did Ukraine ever accept Russian occupation of any part of their country since 2014? When wasn't liberating all of Ukraine their stated goal?
Crimea is geographically vital for Russia to retain access to the seas all year round.
No, they are not going to nuke Ukraine or anywhere else when Russia itself is not under threat. It would be an act of batshit insanity that the world has never before seen.
It always was it was, just some in the west wanted Ukraine to give it to Russia so the war could end and everything get back to normal.
Wtf are you talking about? Russia didn't have Crimea for 20+ years and had access to the Black Sea, no problem. They cannot be "surrounded and blocked off" by Ukraine.
Number 80k was dead and wounded combined. According to Ukrainians, over 40k Russian soldiers were killed.
Sorry, that statement was a bit misleading. Of course it was always Ukraine's goal to do that, Zelensky stated/repeated it just now.
It's true that Russia has been building up a huge amount of capacity in Nororossiysk in previous years.Wtf are you talking about? Russia didn't have Crimea for 20+ years and had access to the Black Sea, no problem. They cannot be "surrounded and blocked off" by Ukraine.
The port of Novorossiysk, in Russia, is one of the 3 biggest ports in the Black Sea along with Constanta and Odessa. Between Crimea and Turkey, there are several nautical miles of international waters.
Those "security concerns" are lebensraum-style utter horseshit to justify imperialism and expansionism as necessity.
Think it's a mix of economical (lots of trade passes through the river + ports) and military (they can establish control over most of the Black Sea through land based missiles in Crimea). If they lose Crimea they will effectively lose control of the Black Sea if NATO continues to be supplied with NATO weaponry and that cuts them off completely.Wtf are you talking about? Russia didn't have Crimea for 20+ years and had access to the Black Sea, no problem. They cannot be "surrounded and blocked off" by Ukraine.
The port of Novorossiysk, in Russia, is one of the 3 biggest ports in the Black Sea along with Constanta and Odessa. Between Crimea and Turkey, there are several nautical miles of international waters.
Those "security concerns" are lebensraum-style utter horseshit to justify imperialism and expansionism as necessity.
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Yeah my mistake. Its still a load of men lost though. It just feels like Ukraine is getting the upper hand but it might be wishful thinking on my part.
Ukraine's losses are definitely high as well. Weren't there talks of hundreds dead every day?
Interesting because I watched an interview with a top Ukrainian general and he was talking about being able to push Russia back to February borders when they get the latest artillery but he drew the line at Crimea at that time. I think Zelenski may want Crimea but may also use it as a bargaining chip when the time comes
Ye, it was in May, by now it's down to 30-50 losses to day average.
From the start of this Zelensky talked about a 'diplomatic solution' to Crimea, he and I guess the general you mention saw no possibility to retake Crimea by force, based on the situation at the time. He literraly said in an interview that invading Crimea could start ww3. Some in the west wrongly interpreted this as them willing to cede Crimea in discussions, which they have been very clear will never happen.
Him and his wife were interviewed by Vogue a few weeks ago to spread awareness of the Ukranian plight and had their picture taken to go with the story, if that's what your talking about.
it's their naval base i guess he means. they had control over that for 20+ years until 2014 which is why they annexed it. he's right imo. russia will do whatever it takes to keep crimea.
basically this.
it'll be interesting to see if this is true. i took that 80k number to mean wounded and dead. because the invasion force was 160k or 200k and there were reports of 50k before we had unverified reports of more troop deployment. hard to know what's really happening in terms of troop losses on either side. but i'm expecting russia to go very indiscriminate now. the kind of thing they refrained from early.
full article https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/08/09/ukraine-war-russia-optimism-winning-counteroffensive/
Old school. It's what the British Empire used to do but obviously needs to be backed up with serious discipline if your fighting force isn't to become a rabble. Might also explain the proclivity for committing heinous war crimes to some degree.
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Oh no! Anyway...
Z army is scraping the barrel now, no wonder Russian advancements have been halted to the few hundred meters in a week here and there. It will be an easy meat for the thousands of Ukrainian soldiers now undertaking training in Britain and elsewhere in Nato countries once they graduate and come back while operating Nato level weapons.Tweet
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More worryingly for Putin, they already have a huge population decline issue, add in many Russians fleeing the country, the brain drain and getting close to 100k killed/wounded men (most of whom you'd assume are between 16-35) is hardly going to help. He's tried to even pay couples to have more kids and they're now facing a weak economy for years which stunts childbirth rates as well.
Well he deported close to 2 million Ukrainians in occupied territories to Russia for a reason.
Yes that's a big part of why he's invaded - they also include Donbas population in their official Russian figures for example - so most of those people are already counted by Putin. Question is can he make it more attractive for people to stay long term, it's all well and good bringing millions of Ukrainians into the country but they can't, at least easily, keep the majority of them there once the war is over.
Interesting. When I was in Crimea about 12 years ago, most locals appeared to lean pro-Russia - noticably more so than those I met in places like Kherson, Mykolaev, and Odesa (where despite everyone speaking Russian, seemed quite content being Ukrainians living in a democratic nation).
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No. When they were negotiating at the beginning, Zelensky proposed a lengthy period of prolongated status-quo on Crimea with a real referendum at some point in a distant future.
https://iccrimea.org/population.html
| Ethnic Group | 1793 (1) | 1863 (2) | 1923 (3) | 1939 (4) | 1959 (5) | 1970 (6) | 1989 (8) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Armenians | * | na | 12,000 | 12,873 | na | 3,091 | na |
| Belarussians | na | na | na | na | 21,672 | 39,793 | 50,045 |
| Bulgarians | * | 17,704 | 12,000 | 15,353 | na | na | na |
| Chuvashes | na | na | na | na | na | 2,453 | na |
| Crimean Tatars | 171,751 | na | 150,000 | 218,179 | na | 6,479 | 38,365 |
| Estonians *** | na | na | na | 1,900 | na | na | 898 |
| Germans | * | na | 40,000 | 51,299 | na | na | na |
| Greeks | * | na | na | 20,652 | na | na | na |
| Jews | na | na | 50,000 | 65,452 | 26,374 | 25,614 | 17,371 |
| Karaims | na | na | na | na | na | 1,553 | na |
| Moldavians | na | na | na | na | na | 3,456 | na |
| Mordovians | na | na | na | na | na | 3,179 | na |
| Poles | na | na | na | na | na | 6,038 | na |
| Russians | 10,831 | 29,246 | 306,000 | 558,481 | 858,273 | 1,220,484 | 1,629,542 |
| Ukrainians | na | 7,797 | ** | 154,120 | 267,659 | 480,733 | 625,919 |
| Other | na | na | na | 28,076 | na | na | na |
| TOTAL | na | 196,873 | 623,000 | 1,126,385 | 1,201,517 | 1,813,502 | na |
The twitter thread doesn't really pass a quick fact-check. He mentions the number of 1 million newcomers as a fact, while in the article he's referencing 1 million is mentioned as an "estimate from unofficial sources", then they reference the official numbers published by Ukraine (already down by half, 500k).
You can also track down the unofficial sources if you're not lazy, but they're incredibly un-scientific in their method, relying on "estimates from anonymous experts". Green is the numbers that they have a source for, the red is an estimate from god knows where.
| Показатель | Количество человек | |
| переезд в город Севастополь на постоянное проживание (официальная статистика на 01.01.2021) | 180 505 | |
| переезд в оккупированную АР Крым на постоянное проживание (официальная статистика на 01.01.2021) | 201 420 | |
| экспертная оценка превышения реального количества постоянного населения над официальными данными по городу Севастополь (минимальная) | 300 000 | |
| экспертная оценка превышения реального количества постоянного населения над официальными данными по городу Симферополь (минимальная) | 300 000 | |
| экспертная оценка превышения реального количества постоянного населения над официальными данными по городам Ялта, Алушта, Евпатория, Феодосия (минимальная) | 50 000 | |
| В целом | 1 031 925 |
Wow. How big are those numbers %-wise? Obviously by a very rough estimate. I have no idea how many planes Russia has but I understand how much one cost.
Russia had leased the port of Sevastopol where it stationed its Black Sea fleet.
I read that based on the pre explosion satellite images it stationed around 10% of Russian jet airfoces (based on pre invasion total figure which have seen massive losses so far). Not sure how accurate it is though.
