Russian invasion of Ukraine

BobKowalski said:
The West was largely disbelieving Putin would actually invade (seems a lot of Russians didn’t think he would either) and that securing the two separatist regions was the actual objective.

Even if we had threatened this level of sanctions, I doubt if Putin would have believed the West would carry them out. The level of sanctions and unity is emotionally driven, triggered by an actual threat. Absent the reality of this threat no one would be even advocating these sanctions let alone implementing them.

I think Putin will begin to destroy Ukraine as punishment for refusing to be ‘liberated‘ and that will trigger further emotional responses - whether that extends to some military intervention, I really much doubt, but then I never thought Putin would be this reckless and I never thought the West would react so strongly, so what the fuck do I know.
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I wonder if Putin's "short term end game" is the two separatist regions.

The rest can wait a while.
 
Chippy_boy said:
He raised a valid point. Seriously who in England gives a toss whether Ukraine is in NATO or not.

99% of people on here would have had no fucking clue whether Ukraine was already in NATO or not. 3 months ago.

What is key is that they don't get invaded and subsumed into Russia. Well look how that is working out.
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A valid point that NATO should have just given in to Russian aggression??
I think you've forgotten that Russia don't respect weakness. They launched a biological weapons attack in the UK and we did next to fuck all. Appeasement doesn't work.
 
The west will not put soldiers on the ground as they fear putin starting a nuclear war. This illegal war in Ukraine is already lost. Putin has everyone running scared.
 
wolviedinho said:
Maybe but what have the ukrainians got to lose? A war they did not want, dying at the hands of a dictator only to end up becoming a part of the new Russia. Nothing should be off the table. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

It only a thought my you and will most likely will not happen.
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Because Putin can claim Ukraine have declared war on Russia and really go in hard, he’s already claiming they’re trying to buy nukes.
 
west didsblue said:
A valid point that NATO should have just given in to Russian aggression??
I think you've forgotten that Russia don't respect weakness. They launched a biological weapons attack in the UK and we did next to fuck all. Appeasement doesn't work.
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In fairness, we did say they were very naughty boys for doing it & gave them a good talking to
 
Chippy_boy said:
He raised a valid point. Seriously who in England gives a toss whether Ukraine is in NATO or not.

99% of people on here would have had no fucking clue whether Ukraine was already in NATO or not. 3 months ago.

What is key is that they don't get invaded and subsumed into Russia. Well look how that is working out.
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They were going to get invaded regardless of any NATO application. Their only way to avoid that would have been to elect a pro-Putin puppet.
 
It’s the end game I fear, he’s sent in the elite troops and the children are terrified unless you can threaten Russia with a nuke then you have no chance of saving your country. He now wants all nuclear weapons out of Europe or else!! he can use cruise missile but we can’t
 
domalino said:
It feels like this convoy is the heart of the war.

It's so bloody big, it's so visible, so many military commentators are saying it's such bad strategy, and yet if it gets to and surrounds Kiev then the war is over because millions of people will be cut off from food and supplies.

If it can be destroyed it will be a massive, humiliating blow to the invasion.
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If it can be destroyed or stopped by Ukranians.

Otherwise, it is as much of a provocation as it is a humiliation. If it is hit by jets provided by the west, it is another level of rhetoric for Putin. He has already said, countries providing equipment will face consequences of that equipment being used against Russia.

It a one long convoy of chicken.
 
west didsblue said:
Bollocks.
There was an agreement in place that Russia would respect Ukraine's borders when Ukraine gave up its USSR nukes.
Any agreement with Russia isn't worth the paper it's written on, and NATO was never the real issue for Putin. It was and always has been his dreams of a Russian Empire.
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I think that’s a pretty baseless argument about what he dreams, it’s never becoming a reality without WW3 anyway, but completely agree about the paper not being worth anything with that lot.
 
twosips said:
Just welled up ffs. This and the russians gathering for the protests. Bravey on all sides, and none of them should have to go through this just because of some fucking insane megalomaniac.
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wolviedinho said:
The west will not put soldiers on the ground as they fear putin starting a nuclear war. This illegal war in Ukraine is already lost. Putin has everyone running scared.
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Kirkstall Blue said:
It’s the end game I fear, he’s sent in the elite troops and the children are terrified unless you can threaten Russia with a nuke then you have no chance of saving your country. He now wants all nuclear weapons out of Europe or else!! he can use cruise missile but we can’t
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We should do the exact oposite of what ever Putin demands.
 
west didsblue said:
Bollocks.
There was an agreement in place that Russia would respect Ukraine's borders when Ukraine gave up its USSR nukes.
Any agreement with Russia isn't worth the paper it's written on, and NATO was never the real issue for Putin. It was and always has been his dreams of a Russian Empire.
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And how would it then be worse than it is now? Maybe we'd be in the same boat anyway, but it would have made his invading more difficult to justify and if it had just delayed the inevitable for another few years, at least he'd then be older, and potentially less powerful. And who knows, maybe would have been overthrown in the meantime.

A (say) 10-year deal to not join NATO - as far as I can see - had few downsides. It may not have worked, in which case we'd be where we are now. But it may have worked.
 
west didsblue said:
A valid point that NATO should have just given in to Russian aggression??
I think you've forgotten that Russia don't respect weakness. They launched a biological weapons attack in the UK and we did next to fuck all. Appeasement doesn't work.
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Lazy thinking. Putin won't be around forever.
 
bluesteel said:
He’d have done it anyway. The only way this wasn’t kicking off if is he’d have got his legal guarantee that Ukraine would never join NATO.
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west didsblue said:
Bollocks.
There was an agreement in place that Russia would respect Ukraine's borders when Ukraine gave up its USSR nukes.
Any agreement with Russia isn't worth the paper it's written on, and NATO was never the real issue for Putin. It was and always has been his dreams of a Russian Empire.
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Bluesteel, you need to look up Alexander Dugin and his political theories because Putin is a known believer in them and he spelled that out in his speeches before.

Putin does not believe Ukraine or Belarus are real countries, he thinks they are part of Russia that was opportunistically cut off the motherland in the fall of the USSR and that the future of the Russian state depends on them being reunified.

It has nothing to do with NATO. He told us this directly, to our faces and you’re still trying to overthink ways in which it’s NATOs fault.

In fact, you may have heard of this article that was accidentally published on Russian state news website that was meant to be kept back until the war was won.



This thread has the full translation but I’ve quote tweeted the two relevant ones. It’s not about NATO and it never has been.

 
Heidenreich said:
I was watching a Politic show in Germany and a Politician told that the USA were lobbying Ukraine to join NATO and EU in 2008. France and Germany blocked the Approval due to fear of war
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Tbh that's my take on it too. The Russians don't want nato on their doorstep. I don't think it's fair to say it was caused by the West or by America because the Ukrainian people democratically elected to be closer to Europe than Russia. Putin himself said (in his propaganda piece on Ukraine a couple of years ago) the people of Ukraine must decide themselves if they want to continue the historic kinship between Russia and Ukraine.

I think an analogy is Russia wanting nukes next door to America, in Cuba. It doesn't play well with the superpowers. (Though Cuba wasn't a democracy and didn't really choose to be closer to Russia)

I think Germany had accepted that world view, ie that Russia wouldn't want / allow Ukraine to be part of nato and for Russia to have the enemies nukes on their doorstep. In effect it might cause a war itself.

So the west have pushed/brought/encouraged democracy too close to Russia (in Russian eyes) and so Russia have invaded them.

So what do you think?
 
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