The Ukraine war thread
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Received from a friend as part of an email earlier today.
Something to consider:
The "Putin will totally nuke the entire western world over the ownership of Kherson" argument doesn't go together with the "He's a very reasonable guy you can just strike a deal with at any time" argument, but by God a lot of people try to make it.”
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Yeah, right?
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@George-K said in The Ukraine war thread:
I still don't understand how the evidence doesn't completely point to "nukes are inevitable."
When he's out of traditional weapons, it's not like he's going to pack up and go home.
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If Putin uses nukes he stands to turn even his fair weather friends, India and China, against Russia. Given the messages coming out the NATO and the EU today, it is almost certain a nuke on a Ukrainian target would trigger article 5 of the NATO treaty. That happens and Putin loses his army and his Black Sea fleet.
Fear of what Putin could or would do is no solution. Fear of what he could, would or might do leads only to appeasement as his stated minimal terms amount to unconditional surrender of Ukraine to either Russian suzerainty or, more likely, loss of sovereignty altogether.
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@George-K said in The Ukraine war thread:
@Renauda let's say he pushes the red button.
Will the rest of the government stand by him?
Never mind. Of course they will.
I think a lot of them are pissed he hasn't already.
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@Renauda said in The Ukraine war thread:
If Putin uses nukes he stands to turn even his fair weather friends, India and China, against Russia. Given the messages coming out the NATO and the EU today, it is almost certain a nuke on a Ukrainian target would trigger article 5 of the NATO treaty. That happens and Putin loses his army and his Black Sea fleet.
Right, but in Putin's mind, he's in an existential conflict, right? So he gets desperate, drops a nuke, we take out his fleet and he takes that as a direct assault from NATO on Russia and we're right into plan A.
No one has a deescalation plan so how is that not a certainty at this point?
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The only one who ought to have a deescalation plan is Putin himself. It would appear he does not and I would suggest the thought of such never entered his mind. All he knows is escalation - even Kremlin talk of negotiation amounts to escalation as the stated terms or nothing less than unconditional surrender.
That is the predicament Kyiv and NATO are faced. Appease Putin by ceding whatever territory of Ukraine he wants now and in future and leave the rump state of what remains of Ukraine as a vassal state at the pleasure of a re-emerging Russian Empire or Soviet Union.
When thinking and talking about how to get Putin to deescalate and stop what he’s doing through diplomacy, remember the - albeit probably apocryphal - words of Churchill when urged to negotiate with Germany following the fall of France in 1940:
“You cannot negotiate with a tiger when he has your head in his mouth.”
You know the rest of the story.
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@George-K lol
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@Mik said in The Ukraine war thread:
Some truths are eternal. If we bow to Putin’s nuclear blackmail today we will just find ourselves in the same position when he may be stronger. .
Yeah, I'm not saying we do it, I'm just asking: how is he not going to go nuclear anyway? Does anyone really think this isn't going to happen?
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I thought he was a planner.
If nukes were part of the plan, then lining up support for nukes would be part of the plan.
Tucker's opening tonight was about how AOC supports nuclear war, along with everyone in Washington. Maybe I should pay some attention to this.
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The conscripts.
Public reports of the first deaths of ill-prepared mobilized Russian troops in Ukraine have sparked renewed criticism of the Russian military command. Russian media reported that five mobilized men from Chelyabinsk have already died in combat in Ukraine just three weeks after President Vladimir Putin’s declaration of partial mobilization on September 21.[1] The report led many pro-war milbloggers to claim that the number of dead and wounded among mobilized servicemen is likely higher than this due to lack of promised training, equipment, unit cohesion, and commanders, as well as repeated instances of wrongful mobilization.
https://news.yahoo.com/russian-conscripts-mostly-convicts-being-115204038.html:
Russian conscripts have started arriving in Luhansk Oblast. The vast majority of them are men who were serving sentences in Russian prisons at the time of conscription.
Source: Serhii Haidai, Head of the Luhansk Oblast Military Administration, during a briefing at the Ukraine Media Center/Ukrinform on 13 October
Quote from Haidai: "Conscripts are being deployed in the occupied territories. These are the newly drafted [soldiers] [Haidai is referring to the most recent wave of mobilisation that Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on 21 September - ed.]. There are both civilians and citizens of the Russian Federation who were serving sentences in prisons [at the time of conscription]; that is, convicts have been deployed [to fight in Ukraine]. And quite a lot of them at that."
Details: The head of the Luhansk Oblast Military Administration also added that the Russians have stopped allowing civilians to leave the occupied territories.
Haidai believes that the occupiers intend to use Ukrainian civilians as human shields for their soldiers.