Russian invasion of Ukraine | Fewer tweets, more discussion

[Laurencio]

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Same shit as Pius XII during WW2.

Staggering lack of geopolitical understanding from the Vatican.

 

[Gehrman]

Staggering lack of geopolitical understanding from the Vatican.

Considering they are gods representive on earth, they have never really performed well on geopolitics, human rights and consensual sex and all that.

 

[Simbo]

Considering they are gods representive on earth, they have never really performed well on geopolitics, human rights and consensual sex and all that.

It's at least consistent, but if I'm a geopolitical chess player, I'd of dug my hooks into the Vatican and its people long ago. Easy game when they've got so many skeletons in their vaults.

I tend to believe putin has his hooks in everyone though. At least Macron has started fighting back of late.

 

[Raoul]

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[VorZakone]

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And if Russia hits European troops with air strikes?

 

[Raoul]

And if Russia hits European troops with air strikes?

They fight a conventional war because going to nukes would invoke MAD.

 

[frostbite]

Macron taking the matter actually seriously. I've loved his switch in rhetoric on this. We have an imperialist nut-case on the move again in Europe. PUTIN WANTS LAND AND RESOURCES. How many times does this have to be said?

All these people saying "just give him Ukraine" or "Ukraine has to give up and come to the table", have you never opened a fecking text book? The only difference this time is the fascist imperialist has nukes and seems happy to threaten their use unless he gets to recreate the Russian Empire.

I don't know why the west is still so slow here. Give every country that wants it membership in NATO, bring back full scale European military industrial production. Tax people more to fund it. The dithering is pathetic.

You are right. Unfortunately, we have pathetic leaders. Scholz and Biden would both be good leaders in normal times, when nothing really happens and they could just concentrate on internal economic growth and social measures. Unfortunately, against expansionist dictators like Putin we need someone more hard-core, like Churchill, someone that would make Putin worry.

Actually, if we had such a leader in the past 20 years (instead of useless "leaders" like Obama and Trump and Merkel), Putin would not have invaded Ukraine in the first place, and thousands of people would not have died and millions of Ukrainians wouldn't have lost their homes. Avoiding conflict against dictators is usually not a good idea, history has shown that multiple times ... but we don't learn.

 

[devilish]

I am ashamed of this pope. He is as pro Russian as he can be

 

[frostbite]

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[Simbo]

And if Russia hits European troops with air strikes?

That just becomes a lose-lose situation for Putin. There would be a response depending which countries troops was hit obviously. Most likely in the form of increased support/supplies. It may very well force European countries over the line that we all want them to cross, from half-assed help to actual dedication in Ukraine winning the war.

A direct military response would involve a strike on Russian forces within Ukraine, may as well let Ukraine do that with new toys without the extra geo-political pain, but I suppose it would send a stronger message to do it directly. What's Putin going to do then? Continue hitting European troops? All his remaining goals in Ukraine shatter overnight if he escalates it to exchanging fire with European forces, and that's even if the US sits back.

Sure he'd pile on the nuclear rhetoric, but as long as it all stays contained within Ukraine no one is taking him too seriously with it. Maybe there's an angle where escalating with other European countries is actually his goal, I can't think of much rational behind that though.

 

[VorZakone]

They fight a conventional war because going to nukes would invoke MAD.

Yeah, this sounds like fantasy to me. I highly doubt European nations are willing to risk war with Russia.

 

[africanspur]

Yeah, this sounds like fantasy to me. I highly doubt European nations are willing to risk war with Russia.

That tweet is pure fantasy let's be honest.

 

[Raoul]

Yeah, this sounds like fantasy to me. I highly doubt European nations are willing to risk war with Russia.

Its an unlikely scenario that was probably fanned by Macron's recent comments. But one could just as well make a credible argument that not engaging with Russia now would only delay the inevitable war after Putin takes over all of Ukraine.

 

[Laurencio]

Its an unlikely scenario that was probably fanned by Macron's recent comments. But one could just as well make a credible argument that not engaging with Russia now would only delay the inevitable war after Putin takes over all of Ukraine.

That"inevitable war" with NATO or the EU more or less equals a suicide run for Putin at that point. Keep the Russian war machine occupied and taking heavy losses, while simultaneously rearming the EU and NATO is the best strategy for long term stability in Europe. Countries need time to catch up militarily, to sort out the energy shortage that followed the Russian invasion and stabilise the economy.

Europe benefits from providing Ukraine with the means to fight Russia, which gives them time to rearm and delays the Russian war machine's growth, but if they comit troops popular support for Ukraine will plummet. No one is going to be happy about losing soldiers in a long and dragged out war. The number of soldiers doesn't matter here, for NATO to make a dent they have to involve some pretty heavy arms in addition to troops which changes the calculus of the war. Victory right now is an end to hostilities in Ukraine and continued Ukrainian independence, with NATO involved it becomes a case of Moscow asking "how far into Russia could they go".

 

[VorZakone]

Its an unlikely scenario that was probably fanned by Macron's recent comments. But one could just as well make a credible argument that not engaging with Russia now would only delay the inevitable war after Putin takes over all of Ukraine.

Why would war be inevitable? Even with a Trump presidency, I don't see Russia trying to attack NATO. Russia will likely continue all sorts of hybrid tactics to divide Western countries and we should counter that. But I don't expect war.

 

[Laurencio]

Why would war be inevitable? Even with a Trump presidency, I don't see Russia trying to attack NATO. Russia will likely continue all sorts of hybrid tactics to divide Western countries and we should counter that. But I don't expect war.

If the EU isn't united and strong enough and the US doesn't look likely to honour a call for article 5, Putin might think that certain countries in Europe would follow the US example and not answer the call, and risk it.

It's an unlikely scenario, but I know that is the scenario defence ministries across Europe are considering right now.

 

[Raoul]

Why would war be inevitable? Even with a Trump presidency, I don't see Russia trying to attack NATO. Russia will likely continue all sorts of hybrid tactics to divide Western countries and we should counter that. But I don't expect war.

Because Putin's objective is to expand. He's not going to just get Ukraine and not use it as a foundation from which to pursue other conquests. Not that I think he will actually take over Ukraine since the population would continue fighting him even if he takes over more land.

 

[Red in STL]

If the EU isn't united and strong enough and the US doesn't look likely to honour a call for article 5, Putin might think that certain countries in Europe would follow the US example and not answer the call, and risk it.

It's an unlikely scenario, but I know that is the scenario defence ministries across Europe are considering right now.

The EU isn't united now and 2 major members of NATO aren't in the EU either

 

[Suedesi]

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[Suedesi]

The net effect of the Western sanctions is that the West has cut itself off from resources it needs, in return for cutting Russia off from things it doesn't really need.

 

[Stanley Road]

The net effect of the Western sanctions is that the West has cut itself off from resources it needs, in return for cutting Russia off from things it doesn't really need.

What resource does Russia have that no-one else can supply?

 

[stefan92]

What resource does Russia have that no-one else can supply?

It's mostly a pricing issue, not that there is anything irreplacable.

 

[Simbo]

The net effect of the Western sanctions is that the West has cut itself off from resources it needs, in return for cutting Russia off from things it doesn't really need.

"favourable to the long term development of the Russian economy" Good lord, I couldn't get past there, comical. The Russian economy is dead, they just playing weekend at Bernie's with it. The rouble is worthless and foreign reserves are drying up. They are now beholden to China to function.

They are no doubt doing a very good job of adapting and managing it, but its just a matter of time. Probably too much time to affect this war unfortunately. Either way, these sanctions should have been in place 10 years ago.

 

[4bars]

"favourable to the long term development of the Russian economy" Good lord, I couldn't get past there, comical. The Russian economy is dead, they just playing weekend at Bernie's with it. The rouble is worthless and foreign reserves are drying up. They are now beholden to China to function.

They are no doubt doing a very good job of adapting and managing it, but its just a matter of time. Probably too much time to affect this war unfortunately. Either way, these sanctions should have been in place 10 years ago.

Im hearing a matter of time since they were many people that said that russia could not hold 3 months of war

Also about the reserves for a few months

Matter of time...and here we are

So far seems putin was well prepared for the eventuality.

 

[VorZakone]

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[DT12]

"favourable to the long term development of the Russian economy" Good lord, I couldn't get past there, comical. The Russian economy is dead

While unsurprising you didn't make it beyond the part you didn't like to hear, it's still disappointing. I'd have been interested to hear you refute the facts he goes on to state that corroborate his opinion. James Galbraith is a highly respected economist and university professor and has been demonstrably correct about this issue since late 2022. You are neither. Jeffrey Sonnenfeld's delusional nonsense continues to be cited in the Western media as reasons for why the sanctions will one distant halcyon day be effective and Galbraith is correct to run down the flaws of his thinking. If you're able to refute his concrete points instead of dismissing them before you've even heard them, go ahead.

From the last day alone there have been 2 more mainstream articles on this issue of the Russian economy. Here's CNN talking about how Russia is currently producing 3 times more artillery than the entire West combined:

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/10/...shell-production-us-europe-ukraine/index.html

That article is relevant because, per the video you couldn't make it through, Sonnenfeld was saying back in April 2022 that the sanctions would cripple the Russian economy/war machine and lead to Ukraine's victory by 2023. They would make it nigh-on impossible for Russia to produce weapons at the required rate. Crucially, this was also the thinking of the idiots in Washington and London who trust him as a source; colonial holdovers who believed that the world's borders start and end with "the collective West". The ONLY way Ukraine could ever have won this war was if the West succeeded in crashing the Russian economy in 2022 (this is reportedly what they promised Zelenskiy they would do if he agreed to keep fighting back in April 2022). They didn't, because to do that required getting the likes of China, India and the rest of the global south to go along with it. The result is this attritional shitshow that Ukraine is fated to lose and for which the Pope is apparently a "piece of sh*t fascist-sympathising c*nt" for stating the obvious that peace talks are required now ("BUT YOU СAN'T NEGOTIATE WITH PUTIN! HE BREAKS EVERY AGREEMENT HE EVER MAKES!" - yeah, the entire non-Western world has a 23-year track record that suggests otherwise. Putin is not the only common denominator here, but looking in a mirror is not the West's strongest point).

Here's the 2nd article from yesterday:

https://www.economist.com/finance-a...sias-economy-once-again-defies-the-doomsayers

That article is notable because it was doing very well up until the very last line. It lays out why the Russian economy keeps on "defying the doomsayers", points to its good relations with every country on earth that isn't "the West", but then ends with: "The world's pariah economy is once again back on track". There we see it again, the West's habit of refering to itself as a synecdoche for "the world". An entire article talking about how the vast majority of the planet continues to do business with Russia...and then you describe it as 'the world's pariah".

Long ago I had 2 hopes for a silver lining to this war - 1) an improvement in media literacy among Western people (that is, 26 months into this war, you see a tweet from some random moron saying "change my mind" after posting a picture of foreign flags in Ukraine like he's setting up a first XI for a football match, and you choose not to promulgate it because you recognise it's utterly imbecilic), and 2) the West will get over itself and realise it is nowhere near as powerful and influential as it imagined it was back in 2022. More importantly going foward, I hoped the West would realise why so much of the world is not going along with its agenda (spoiler alert, it's not because "they hate freedom and democracy"). Unfortunately the opposite is happening. Media literacy is as bad as it has ever been and the West continues to lead Ukraine down the garden path.

 

[Suedesi]

Sonnenfeld is a character. He teaches leadership and corporate governance, so it's puzzling how he's become a go-to source in a field beyond his expertise, i.e. sanctions. His job is literally - for example to draw on a current issue - to call for Boeing senior leadership to have all of their bonuses cancelled and clawed back.

 

[Real Name]

Love the peace talks are required now camp. Ukraine should supposedly talk about a peace deal which would include giving to on a part of its territory cause sure as hell Russia won't give up on it.
But Putin is portrayed as someone who's ready to talk about a peace deal after occupying a 3rd of Ukraine and bombing it every day.

I guess he's a leader who just wants to live in peace and trade with other nations.

 

[VorZakone]

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[Siorac]

Love the peace talks are required now camp. Ukraine should supposedly talk about a peace deal which would include giving to on a part of its territory cause sure as hell Russia won't give up on it.
But Putin is portrayed as someone who's ready to talk about a peace deal after occupying a 3rd of Ukraine and bombing it every day.

I guess he's a leader who just wants to live in peace and trade with other nations.

Peace in Ukraine now would essentially mean Ukraine permanently giving up its sovereignty while Putin is getting time and space to start preparing for his next adventure, probably in the Baltics. Russians and their useful idiots elsewhere are obviously happy with that scenario but Ukraine can't afford giving up now, as hard as it is with western dithering.

 

[VorZakone]

Ukraine-based Russian armed groups claim raids into Russia

Three Ukraine-based Russian paramilitary groups say they have crossed into Russia and are now fighting government troops there. The Freedom of Russia Legion (FRL) and Siberian Battalion (SB) posted videos purportedly showing their fighters in Russia's Belgorod and Kursk regions. The FRL and an exiled Russian politician claimed two villages were now in control of "liberation forces".

Russia's defence ministry said the breakthrough attempts were thwarted.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68541911

 

[VorZakone]

ATACMS for Ukraine.

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[nimic]

While unsurprising you didn't make it beyond the part you didn't like to hear, it's still disappointing. I'd have been interested to hear you refute the facts he goes on to state that corroborate his opinion. James Galbraith is a highly respected economist and university professor and has been demonstrably correct about this issue since late 2022. You are neither. Jeffrey Sonnenfeld's delusional nonsense continues to be cited in the Western media as reasons for why the sanctions will one distant halcyon day be effective and Galbraith is correct to run down the flaws of his thinking. If you're able to refute his concrete points instead of dismissing them before you've even heard them, go ahead.

From the last day alone there have been 2 more mainstream articles on this issue of the Russian economy. Here's CNN talking about how Russia is currently producing 3 times more artillery than the entire West combined:

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/10/...shell-production-us-europe-ukraine/index.html

That article is relevant because, per the video you couldn't make it through, Sonnenfeld was saying back in April 2022 that the sanctions would cripple the Russian economy/war machine and lead to Ukraine's victory by 2023. They would make it nigh-on impossible for Russia to produce weapons at the required rate. Crucially, this was also the thinking of the idiots in Washington and London who trust him as a source; colonial holdovers who believed that the world's borders start and end with "the collective West". The ONLY way Ukraine could ever have won this war was if the West succeeded in crashing the Russian economy in 2022 (this is reportedly what they promised Zelenskiy they would do if he agreed to keep fighting back in April 2022). They didn't, because to do that required getting the likes of China, India and the rest of the global south to go along with it. The result is this attritional shitshow that Ukraine is fated to lose and for which the Pope is apparently a "piece of sh*t fascist-sympathising c*nt" for stating the obvious that peace talks are required now ("BUT YOU СAN'T NEGOTIATE WITH PUTIN! HE BREAKS EVERY AGREEMENT HE EVER MAKES!" - yeah, the entire non-Western world has a 23-year track record that suggests otherwise. Putin is not the only common denominator here, but looking in a mirror is not the West's strongest point).

Here's the 2nd article from yesterday:

https://www.economist.com/finance-a...sias-economy-once-again-defies-the-doomsayers

That article is notable because it was doing very well up until the very last line. It lays out why the Russian economy keeps on "defying the doomsayers", points to its good relations with every country on earth that isn't "the West", but then ends with: "The world's pariah economy is once again back on track". There we see it again, the West's habit of refering to itself as a synecdoche for "the world". An entire article talking about how the vast majority of the planet continues to do business with Russia...and then you describe it as 'the world's pariah".

Long ago I had 2 hopes for a silver lining to this war - 1) an improvement in media literacy among Western people (that is, 26 months into this war, you see a tweet from some random moron saying "change my mind" after posting a picture of foreign flags in Ukraine like he's setting up a first XI for a football match, and you choose not to promulgate it because you recognise it's utterly imbecilic), and 2) the West will get over itself and realise it is nowhere near as powerful and influential as it imagined it was back in 2022. More importantly going foward, I hoped the West would realise why so much of the world is not going along with its agenda (spoiler alert, it's not because "they hate freedom and democracy"). Unfortunately the opposite is happening. Media literacy is as bad as it has ever been and the West continues to lead Ukraine down the garden path.

Well, as long as you get to feel superior about your claimed media literacy advantage over the collective West, that's something at least.

 

[Raoul]

3:00 - A final stake in the heart to the arguments of any remaining Putin apologists about the lie that Russia invaded Ukraine to stop NATO expansion. The addition of Finland alone has doubled Russian border territory with NATO countries, so if NATO was always the concern, then why hasn't Putin redeployed half of his troops in Ukraine to the Finland border ?

 

[Stanley Road]

While unsurprising you didn't make it beyond the part you didn't like to hear, it's still disappointing. I'd have been interested to hear you refute the facts he goes on to state that corroborate his opinion. James Galbraith is a highly respected economist and university professor and has been demonstrably correct about this issue since late 2022. You are neither. Jeffrey Sonnenfeld's delusional nonsense continues to be cited in the Western media as reasons for why the sanctions will one distant halcyon day be effective and Galbraith is correct to run down the flaws of his thinking. If you're able to refute his concrete points instead of dismissing them before you've even heard them, go ahead.

From the last day alone there have been 2 more mainstream articles on this issue of the Russian economy. Here's CNN talking about how Russia is currently producing 3 times more artillery than the entire West combined:

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/10/...shell-production-us-europe-ukraine/index.html

That article is relevant because, per the video you couldn't make it through, Sonnenfeld was saying back in April 2022 that the sanctions would cripple the Russian economy/war machine and lead to Ukraine's victory by 2023. They would make it nigh-on impossible for Russia to produce weapons at the required rate. Crucially, this was also the thinking of the idiots in Washington and London who trust him as a source; colonial holdovers who believed that the world's borders start and end with "the collective West". The ONLY way Ukraine could ever have won this war was if the West succeeded in crashing the Russian economy in 2022 (this is reportedly what they promised Zelenskiy they would do if he agreed to keep fighting back in April 2022). They didn't, because to do that required getting the likes of China, India and the rest of the global south to go along with it. The result is this attritional shitshow that Ukraine is fated to lose and for which the Pope is apparently a "piece of sh*t fascist-sympathising c*nt" for stating the obvious that peace talks are required now ("BUT YOU СAN'T NEGOTIATE WITH PUTIN! HE BREAKS EVERY AGREEMENT HE EVER MAKES!" - yeah, the entire non-Western world has a 23-year track record that suggests otherwise. Putin is not the only common denominator here, but looking in a mirror is not the West's strongest point).

Here's the 2nd article from yesterday:

https://www.economist.com/finance-a...sias-economy-once-again-defies-the-doomsayers

That article is notable because it was doing very well up until the very last line. It lays out why the Russian economy keeps on "defying the doomsayers", points to its good relations with every country on earth that isn't "the West", but then ends with: "The world's pariah economy is once again back on track". There we see it again, the West's habit of refering to itself as a synecdoche for "the world". An entire article talking about how the vast majority of the planet continues to do business with Russia...and then you describe it as 'the world's pariah".

Long ago I had 2 hopes for a silver lining to this war - 1) an improvement in media literacy among Western people (that is, 26 months into this war, you see a tweet from some random moron saying "change my mind" after posting a picture of foreign flags in Ukraine like he's setting up a first XI for a football match, and you choose not to promulgate it because you recognise it's utterly imbecilic), and 2) the West will get over itself and realise it is nowhere near as powerful and influential as it imagined it was back in 2022. More importantly going foward, I hoped the West would realise why so much of the world is not going along with its agenda (spoiler alert, it's not because "they hate freedom and democracy"). Unfortunately the opposite is happening. Media literacy is as bad as it has ever been and the West continues to lead Ukraine down the garden path.

The west as you call it is very powerful but that needs agreement amongst all parties. Sanctions don't ever seem to work but not providing weapons is a disaster. Its like one of the reasons I hate eu countries, they talk and talk but do nothing, a stray missile on a nato country might help everyone.

 

[B. Munich]

Sanctions are effective if everybody take part.
The sanctions against Russia might be the hardest ever but only the US and some Western democracies are really following them. It doesn't help if China gives a damn and India imports 33x more oil from Russia than before the war.
I thought the West was controlling the insurances of the tankers. Unfortunately, this seems also to have only a minor effect on Russian oil exports as well as the introduced price cap.
Many countries of the global south more or less support Russia because they want a multipolar world. It's the reality many Europeans don't want to hear.

 

[RedDevilQuebecois]

Ukraine-based Russian armed groups claim raids into Russia


https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-68541911

Good. Hopefully, that will provide the Ukrainians a much-needed morale booster to hit back at the Putinist army in other areas in the next 72 hours.

 

[harms]

Good. Hopefully, that will provide the Ukrainians a much-needed morale booster to hit back at the Putinist army in other areas in the next 72 hours.

It does look like it amounted to anything, so that’s unlikely.

 

[Simbo]

Im hearing a matter of time since they were many people that said that russia could not hold 3 months of war

Also about the reserves for a few months

Matter of time...and here we are

So far seems putin was well prepared for the eventuality.

Yeah, the world is just impatient is all. Understandable of course considering the horrors Putin is inflicting. It IS a matter of time, just talking years, not months.

 

[RedDevilQuebecois]

Yeah, the world is just impatient is all. Understandable of course considering the horrors Putin is inflicting. It IS a matter of time, just talking years, not months.

It may only be me but it has been a very long time since a heavily media-covered conflict took this long until major military operations on all sides were suspended or so.

To be very honest, the level of Ukrainian resistance in the last 2 years kinda made us expect Russia would go eventually out with tails between their legs by now. FYI: China abandoned their idea of taking over Vietnam after a single month of conflict in 1979 because losses there were just not sustainable, not even to the most populous country on Earth.