The Ukraine war thread
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As your link points out, weight of numbers certainly do not favour the Ukrainians.
Finally a friendly state and its people are willing to sacrifice their young and old alike in the name of freedom, and we, in the West, find ourselves with all our might, in held check by a despot that has declared war on us all.
“Little by little I am learning the art of being quite content by doing very little slowly” ~ Lionel Hardcastle
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"My pronouns are FA/FO." - Mik, 2024
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@Mik said in The Ukraine war thread:
Incidentally, I heard tonight we are going to be giving them helicopters. What, pray tell, is the difference between that and fixed wing aircraft in terms of Russian response?
Biden called it genocide. Macron said he wasn't willing to go that far. Then Biden explicitly doubled down.
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@Mik said in The Ukraine war thread:
@Renauda I cannot help but wonder what would happen if NATO declared Ukraine, Sweden and Finland members and gave the murderous bastard his eviction notice.
Personally, I believe both Finland and Sweden will soon apply for NATO membership. Putin can and will rattle his sword all he wants but it will be a done deal. Putin will bark but won’t bite. Be interesting though if LePen, a Putin groupie, becomes President in France and Putin uses France and his buddy, Viktor Orban in Hungary to try and block their membership. It’s possible, we’ll see.
Ukraine is another matter. The time to have brought Ukraine into NATO was during the Bush II Admin prior to Putin’s infamous Munich tirade in 2007 and invasion of Georgia the following year. Throughout the Obama years there was no appetite either in Washington or with the other founding members of the alliance other than possibly the UK to bring in Ukraine. After the annexation of Crimea and subsequent civil war in the Donbas in 2014; Ukrainian aspirations to join NATO were in any case dashed by virtue of the fact there were border regions in dispute with an immediate neighbour. One of the founding conditions of joining NATO is that all border issues with neighbours must be settled and closed.
Any direct military action NATO or any of its members take in support of Ukraine risks an all out confrontation with Russia. That confrontation could be limited to conventional weapons. It could also just as easily cross the nuclear threshold.
Once that threshold is crossed, our Cold War experience of the last century has taught us that nuclear deterrence has failed and the time has arrived to think about the unthinkable viz. the probability of a strategic nuclear exchange is likely if not certain. That is the price of total war.
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"My pronouns are FA/FO." - Mik, 2024
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“Little by little I am learning the art of being quite content by doing very little slowly” ~ Lionel Hardcastle
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@Renauda said in The Ukraine war thread:
As do I. Still, I do not think that it has really sunk into people’s heads in NATO countries that Putin has already declared war on NATO and the West. He just happens to be taking it out on Ukrainians and on their territory……for now.
How much steam can he have left, though? Their economy has tanked and they're losing a ton of equipment and weapons in Ukraine.
Please love yourself.
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@Aqua-Letifer said in The Ukraine war thread:
How much steam can he have left, though? Their economy has tanked and they're losing a ton of equipment and weapons in Ukraine.
Nuclear arsenals, there is no countermeasure but man‘s will to not actually use them.
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https://time.com/6166595/whats-in-bidens-800-million-military-aid-package-for-ukraine/
... the Biden Administration on Wednesday authorized a massive $800-million military aid package to help Kyiv fend off Moscow’s unprovoked invasion.
The newly announced assistance includes a wide range of weapon systems for the Ukrainian military designed to help them fight off the superior heavy forces Russia is putting into the field. ...
Then there is a long list military hardware the the US will send to Ukraine in that package.
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Ukraine says it damaged Russian flagship, crew evacuates
Ukraine said its forces struck and seriously damaged the flagship of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, dealing a potentially major setback to Moscow’s troops as they try to regroup for a renewed offensive in eastern Ukraine after retreating from much of the north, including the capital.
Russia said Thursday the entire crew of the Moskva, a warship that would typically have 500 sailors on board, was forced to evacuate after a fire overnight and also reported it was badly damaged. But it did not acknowledge any attack, which, in addition to any practical impact, would also deal a major blow to Russian prestige seven weeks into a war that is already widely seen as a historic blunder.
The damage to the ship came hours after some of Ukraine’s allies sought to rally new support for the embattled country. On a visit with leaders from three other EU countries on Russia’s doorstep who fear they could next be in Moscow’s sights, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda declared that “the fight for Europe’s future is happening here.”
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@jon-nyc said in The Ukraine war thread:
David Patraeus and Niall Ferguson. A good read.
Very good read. I particularly liked this Petraeus quote:
"The idea of fighting in a country where everyone hates you and will do anything they can to frustrate what you’re trying to achieve is mind-boggling to me. I can’t imagine what it would be like."
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What George and Mik already stated plus Ferguson’s statement:
“ Another aspect of the war that’s interesting to me is that in some ways we’re seeing a familiar battle between an empire and a nation state. And indeed, the war seems to be forging Ukraine as a nation state even as it weakens Russia as an empire.”
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Nukes threatened if Sweden or Finland join NATO.
My question is, what about the interim period between NATO application and membership? I know they're working on security guarantees but how is the rest of the world going to view an attack from Russia during this interim period?
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I don't see any way the Russian army could mount an effective conventional attack on Scandinavia. It's a bluff. Using nuclear weapons would make Russia a pariah for the foreseeable future and they cannot possibly win a nuclear exchange with NATO.
Even if he eventually occupies Ukraine he won't be able to hold it at any acceptable cost in blood and treasure. Surely he must know this by now.
I've read that Russian troops have been told that the war must be over, one way or another, for the May 9 WWII victory celebration. Perhaps Putin will claim Donetsk and Luhansk and declare victory.
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Sabre rattling. It means nothing and I call B. S. to the threat. Those are highly mobile systems that can be set in place at the drop of a hat and have a range that enables them to be deployed onto target from well within the borders of Russian Federation.
“Little by little I am learning the art of being quite content by doing very little slowly” ~ Lionel Hardcastle
