Russian invasion of Ukraine

[west didsblue]

NATO should have caved into Russia in my opinion when she mobilised troops, in regards to NATO membership and prevented all this.

Fuck off Vlad

 

[mosssideblue]

They applied to join NATO in 2008, and it is still ongoing.

EU application is a symbolic move as you say. And an admirable one. But ultimately meaningless otherwise.

There must be some reason for him rushing in an application. I may be totally wrong but does it not acknowledge that the country is legally European?

 

[twosips]

Is the man of the house available to help you love?

Is the ex wife gonna let you see the kids again this weekend?

 

[domalino]

I don't see it like that.

The west's HUGE fuck up was weeks and months ago with wishy-washy talk about sanctions and not spelling out really, really, really clearly to Putin what the consequences for invasion would be and just how bad it would be for him personally. Then when he made his initial proclamation of the annexation of parts of Ukraine, we imposed really limp sanctions. This gave him a big green light to carry on.

Since then, we have to a much greater extent "thrown the book at him". Although we can still do more. But I am sure the west's response is FAR more coordinated and severe than he was bargaining on. The problem is, having gone into Ukraine - which we really should have prevented in the first place - he now has nowhere to go. He cannot back down. That's why we've really fucked up. I seriously wonder if he regrets where he is right now - I suspect he does.

And I don't see him attempting the same with e.g. Finland or Sweden. The situation is entirely different. He tried to justify the action against Ukraine on the basis that it's natural, cultural home is Russia. And even so, he's seen such and enormous domestic backlash. He cannot possibly make the same claims over Finland or Sweden etc. He'd be completely mad to even try it, and contrary to the lazy narrative, he is not mad.

Agree with all of that. We left it so late there is no off ramp for Putin to walk away, so he's at the stage where he doesn't care about kill ratios and such, only how much rubble he can lave in Ukraine.

He can't back down now because he's fucked either way.

I think you’re both being a bit unfair because you’re applying the unity of “the west” (but really the rest of the world) that exists now to a period where it didn’t exist (1 weeks ago) and saying why didn’t it exist then?

1 week ago no one would have considered Germany tripling it’s defence spending and breaking with 80 years of foreign policy in supplying other countries with weapons would ever change.

No one ever thought the Swiss or Japanese would join in sanctions.

No one thought SWIFT was even on the table as a sanction because the Germans would never allow it.

We couldn’t preemptively threaten this level of reaction because so much of it was beyond the realms of what was considered hypothetically possible before his real action galvanised everyone.

 

[BimboBob]

Is the ex wife gonna let you see the kids again this weekend?

Which one?

 

[Kippaxpete]

Afghanistan wasn't. Iraq wasn't. It fails every time doesn't it?

Indeed, Russian forces have relatively recent experience of having their arses kicked in Afghanistan when they seriously underestimated the capacity of native fighters to engage in guerilla warfare following occupation; all this, despite removal of the incumbent administration. The US subsequently failed to heed that warning from history as, hopefully, the Russians have in Ukraine to their ultimate cost.

 

[Chippy_boy]

Fuck off Vlad

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.

 

[west didsblue]

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.

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.

 

[Gremlin]

Afghanistan wasn't. Iraq wasn't. It fails every time doesn't it? I mean invading another country. It always comes undone in the end.

It depends what you are trying to achieve. Iraq and Afghanistan were initially successful (i.e. the regimes in power were dislodged) but it was what happened after that, because there wasn't a clear plan, that defined the final legacy. Even if Russia is initially successful at dislodging the Ukrainian government (which is by no means certain at this stage) they will have great difficulty dictating events after that.

 

[Dazzle84]

We're already in it.

Got me thinking this - at which point does this become acknowledged? I don't know if it was WW1 immediately in 1914 & same for WW2.

It's academic I know, but it changes viewpoints hugely. Finding work impossible to concentrate on tbh