US: Russia could invade Ukraine within days

[Monster Voices 1,024]

Can the US mind their own damn business thank you

[Luc 4,776]

To be honest, nobody really knows what will happen, intelligence reports also say Putin hasn't made up his own mind yet. A further invasion (remember that Putin already colonized Crimea and supports the war in Donbas) is possible but IMO Putin would be really dumb to do so.

Imagine the benefits of giving back Crimea and Donbas to Ukraine, getting rid of all sanctions, giving the US a reason to leave Europe for good and possibly getting a free trade agreement with the EU vs. invading Ukraine, getting Nord Stream 2 cancelled (a gas pipeline from Russia to North-Western Europe worth billions of euros per year), having Russian soldiers die, controlling a country with almost no economic value (sorry Ukraine) where 75%+ of the people dislike Russia, getting NATO on the defensive (i.e. the EU and NATO will get much stronger as a reaction with way more troops on the borders and possibly expand to Finland, Sweden and the Balkans) and getting bombarded with economic sanctions. If Russia stops invading countries it will literally be the end of NATO. 

I read a very interesting article yesterday that autocratic leaders tend to surround themselves more and more with yes-men from the military and intelligence services rather than top bureaucrats and politicians, leading these autocrats to become more fearful and militaristic over time. IMO it's a very interesting thing to read: we always assume Putin is some genius that always gets what he wants in the end, but is that really true?

[Neroneau 1,017]

10 hours ago, Debithius said:

Russia wants Ukraine because of the shared history and strategic reasons. Considering that a big chunk of the population considers themselves Russian and the fact that Russia actually began in Kiev, Ukraine I am not shocked 

The chunk is a minority. Most of the country sees themselves as Ukrainian. The Rus’ began in Kiev, but that’s not Russia. Russia began with the grand principality of Moscow and the novgorod republic. Ukrainians have also experienced racial cleansing during the USSR and Tsarist years. They’re not looking forward to it.

[Neroneau 1,017]

Putin saying the fall of the USSR being the biggest geopolitical catastrophe of the century is akin to saying the biggest geopolitical catastrophe was the break-up of the French and British empires imo

(although Frances still has an empire but smaller)

[Magic Mike 2,783]

11 minutes ago, Neroneau said:

Putin saying the fall of the USSR being the biggest geopolitical catastrophe of the century is akin to saying the biggest geopolitical catastrophe was the break-up of the French and British empires imo

(although Frances still has an empire but smaller)

And the British ….

[NCgaga 4,345]

5 hours ago, Monster Voices said:

Can the US mind their own damn business thank you

So you are in support of Russia taking over another independent country? 

[Dennis 8,391]

15 hours ago, Lucas said:

there goes world war 3...

Not with a chamberlain as the current U.S president

Imagine the reactions if it was Trump letting Russia invade Ukraine. Just imagine.

If this happens, Biden really has no place being the U.S president. He should resign. China will invade Taiwan next. 

[Concertaholic 6,652]

Need not forget that part of this is also Putin just wagging the dog and wanting to distract his citizens from a poor economy and rally support for his administration in the face of opposition from people like Alexei Navalny.

[AsleepOnTheCeiling 6,998]

1 hour ago, Dennis said:

Not with a chamberlain as the current U.S president

Imagine the reactions if it was Trump letting Russia invade Ukraine. Just imagine.

If this happens, Biden really has no place being the U.S president. He should resign. China will invade Taiwan next. 

From a humanitarian and personal standpoint, of course I would never want a country to be forcibly taken. But at the same time, how is the US gonna justify intervening in Europe and Asia? It's been doing so for decades, and I think it should maybe just focus on itself. 

1 hour ago, Concertaholic said:

Need not forget that part of this is also Putin just wagging the dog and wanting to distract his citizens from a poor economy and rally support for his administration in the face of opposition from people like Alexei Navalny.

What is someone like Alexei gonna achieve at the end? Putin controls so much politically within his own country and is already essentially an illegitimate leader. Everything is rigged in his favor. 

[insight 2,479]

2 hours ago, NCgaga said:

So you are in support of Russia taking over another independent country? 

I suspect that statement you're referring to is very much uninformed.

[NCgaga 4,345]

43 minutes ago, insight said:

I suspect that statement you're referring to is very much uninformed.

How so? I was asking someone a question. It’s easy to say something is “uninformed” without any sort of backing or example of what you are trying to ask.

[insight 2,479]

27 minutes ago, NCgaga said:

How so? I was asking someone a question. It’s easy to say something is “uninformed” without any sort of backing or example of what you are trying to ask.

I was referring to the "US minding its own business" statement. 

[NightStar 313]

There have been several threads started on this issue, some of them dating weeks back, and there certainly have been many articles and confusing news reports that predicted the war to break out during the Olympics. I would take them with a grant of salt. Russia has been involved in a military conflict with Ukraine for some time; it didn't happen overnight and it's a complicated story that has its own dynamics and chronology which must be understood in order to liberate one's expertise from the circumstantial news reports. 

To make a long story short, Russia's long term goal in the conflict was to run the Ukraine budget system and economy into bankruptcy following the 2014 Revolution which their officials regard as "anticonstitutional coup".

They annexed Crimea because Russia's only decent quality naval base in the Black Sea was located there, rented under the long-term contract from the Ukrainian government, and Moscow thought there was no chance in hell that the rent could go on after the 2014 Revolution.  They provided military and financial assistance to two break-away regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in order to contribute to the bankruptcy goal, aiming at cutting Ukraine off her coal and energy industry base and  effectively shutting, as they thought, all the talks of Ukrainian NATO membership, and Russian troops are widely reported to have crossed the border during the "hot" phase of the "antiterrorism operation", a military initiative of Ukrainian government which aimed at restoring the two break-away regions under the control of Kiev government. 

Kremlin's chief advisor on Ukraine mr. Surkov got fired in January 2020 following the announcement of the "Constitution reform" by mr. Putin; the new chief advisor summarized the 6 long years of Russian-Ukrainian conflict and proposed a different strategy to mr. Putin. Its aim is, allegedly, to use the threat of military attack on Ukraine in order to make Germany and France force Kiev to implement the "Minsk-II peace agreements", obviously the way Russia envisions the implementation of these peace agreements. (Moscow wants Kiev to pass a law that would grant vast autonomy, great power to the local administration and amnesty to the two break-away regions of Donetsk and Luhansk before these regions are re-introduced into the Ukraine's sovereignty and Russia handles the control over Donetsk-Russian border back to Kiev). 

If such a plan were to fail and Russia's bluff is discovered, Moscow is likely to adapt the same actions it used in the 2008 war against Georgia, which is recognizing the break-away regions of Ukraine as sovereign states, establishing diplomatic relations with them and sending her troops there for "peace keeping". The problem with such a move would be that recognizing the Donetsk and Luhansk as sovereign states in their proclaimed administrative borders would stumble upon the fact that large parts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions are controlled by the official Ukrainian defense forces. I can see Russia staring a military operation that would seek to throw the Ukraine troops out of Donetsk and Luhansk, HOWEVER, before such an outcome turns real, we must witness the refusal of Germany and France to Russia's proposal of forcing Kiev to implement the "Minsk-II peace agreements" the way Russia wants. 

And that's what to keep an eye on. Political advisers to the leaders of the Normandy group (Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine) met in Paris on January, 26, 2022. They said they would meet in 2 weeks (which is somewhere around February, 9, 2022), and there are also meetings of German and French leaders with Putin scheduled for February, 2022. If these talks fail, the military operation is likely, but I don't see any reasons why Russian troops would want to move anywhere further than Donetsk and Luhansk. 

 

[NCgaga 4,345]

1 hour ago, insight said:

I was referring to the "US minding its own business" statement. 

I didn’t say the US should….

[alfio 97]

19 hours ago, Monster Voices said:

Can the US mind their own damn business thank you

This is an interesting perspective to watch in relation to this statement. It's also a thread.