We cannot take our millions nor our mansions nor our fancy cars to the grave with us.

Wealth and wealth management then is an excercise of power and influence to those who have that kind of capital but even that is short sighted in the face of the reality that we are mortal.

So for a human beings brief and short existence on this planet the accumulation of such wealth can become an unhealthy obsession.

To what end ? — Deus

Have you inherited anything?

Inheritance, a family farm or a beautiful rare painting is something you pass on to the next generation. Or then you are that selfish asshole who sells it and spends the money on alcohol, drugs, sex and driving in a taxi. Because you don't care the fuck about anything or anybody else but pleasuring yourself. You aren't taking anything with you when you die!

And then your children remember this wonderful summer place or this rare painting that the family had which awed everybody, but then you came and now it's just a distant memory.

Would the West still be supporting the war in Ukraine under say, a Republican US president and a right-leaning (read, anti-EU) Europe? — Tzeentch

Yes.

Wasn't (or isn't) the current UK administration right-leaning (read, anti-EU)?

Who are against the support of Ukraine are usually the right-wing populists who have gotten money from the Kremlin. And those that have issues with the US (Turkey) or the EU (Hungary), for example.

REDUCE. Reduce. Reduce. — Isaac

Pointing out that there is still some war crime activity in occupied territories is not an argument that there is more war crime activity in occupied territories than there is in the actual war. — Isaac

Isaac the apologist seems to be on the roll, again.

When a war is over, there should be NO killings, no war crimes or human violations. But somehow when Putin is fighting the war, the killing doesn't end with the proclaimed victory.

In my view the two Chechen wars resulted in what can be described as a genocide or genocidal warfare. Remembering that Chechnya has a population of 1,4 million, the death toll is staggering.

According to the pro-Moscow Chechnya government, 160,000 combatants and non-combatants died or have gone missing in the two wars, including 30,000–40,000 Chechens and about 100,000 Russians; while separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov (deceased) repeatedly claimed about 200,000 ethnic Chechens died as a consequence of the two conflicts.According to a count by the Russian human rights group Memorial in 2007, up to 25,000 civilians have died or disappeared since 1999. According to Amnesty International in 2007, the second war killed up to 25,000 civilians since 1999, with up to another 5,000 people missing.

Somebody with that kind of track record might usually apply same methods that previously have been so successful.

I can't think of a single precedent. In no circumstances at all, that I'm aware of, throughout history, have war crimes continued on the same scale after peace negotiations as they were at before them. I would think the complete absence of such a situation from the annals of human history would count as fairly substantial evidence.

There are no such war crimes in Russia nowadays. — Isaac

Except where Putin has succeeded in gaining a military victory: In Chechnya, the Chechen Republic. Of course, Russian officials and Putin and Kadyrov have declared the war to be over. However:

The separatists denied that the war was over, and guerrilla warfare continued throughout the North Caucasus. Colonel Sulim Yamadayev, Chechnya's second most powerful loyalist warlord after Kadyrov, also denied that the war is over. In March 2007, Yamadayev claimed there were well over 1,000 separatists and foreign Islamic militants entrenched in the mountains of Chechnya alone: "The war is not over, the war is far from being over. What we are facing now is basically a classic partisan war and my prognosis is that it will last two, three, maybe even five more years." According to the CIA factbook (2015), Russia has severely disabled the Chechen separatist movement, although sporadic violence still occurs throughout the North Caucasus

And that there are Chechen fighting on both sides in Ukraine tells something about this conflict, even if it can be declared to be a victory for Putin.

But the war crimes? They are simply called human-rights violations nowdays:

Over the past decade, the world has been shaken by stories about human rights abuses in Chechnya. State-run executions of gay people were the the most notorious, but the reach of Ramzan Kadyrov, the head of the Chechen Republic, exceeds the borders of the republic. His disregard for human rights, and his deal with Vladimir Putin, is increasingly becoming a greater threat - even for his fellow human rights abusers in Moscow.

(See here)

Now, if you have a situation in which the military gets tired and get rid of Putin, OK. Maybe that ends the war. But I wouldn't put all my eggs in that basket, we don't know if that would work well. — Manuel

I don't think anyone is now eager to jump into Putin's place.

As it's just now speculated that the north of the Kherson front might be collapsing (or retreating), the thing with Russia and Russians is the severe beating that they can endure and still persist. Just remember how it was after one and a half years of fighting in 1941-1942? Or how successful Napoleon was until he finished in Moscow?

Yet the fact is that the battlefield here is limited: Ukrainian troops will stop at the Russian border. The West can keep up such aid as it's giving now for quite a while. And now the mobilized troops can basically be formed into meaningful units for a spring offensive. Putin can likely continue the war longer than anticipated. Still, a collapse is also possible, although rather unlikely.

I'll grant you Afghanistan, no doubt. — Manuel

The other one, which I had in mind (and apparently many in Russia have thought about also), is the Russo-Japanese War. That was a war started by Russia with high hopes of a victorious war and with severe contempt and underestimation of the Asian foe. And the under performance of the Russian armed forces came as a surprise to everybody, which just showed the underlying problems of the Empire.



Russia made a peace which was quite unfavorable for it, but the reality at the war's end dictated this.

Unbelievable. The region won't recover in our lifetime, huh? — frank

Ummm...depends on just how old you are. :wink:

I have trouble seeing a military defeat as being an option for Russia. I really do think they'll risk a nuclear war before being defeated. I hope I am wrong, I really do. — Manuel

I don't. Russia has seen it's share of defeats (just like the US with Vietnam and Afghanistan), which have brought political instability.

The sane nuclear escalation would be an underground nuclear test in Novaja Zemlya test site or somewhere else.



The insane escalation would be to try to hit Ukrainian formations with tactical nuclear weapons. This is harder than it sounds as Ukrainian battlegroups don't move in tight confined formations to create great targets. And hitting an airbase or military command center near a town or city would simply make some Ukrainian place name have the similar creepy vibe as Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They already have Chernobyl, you know.

The question is what course of action we should endorse as a solution to it. — Isaac

If you want the aggressor to have a face saving victory, I guess now would be the perfect time to have an immediate cease-fire and set Russian territorial gains to start where the no-mans land is now. A time-out is what the Russian army needs now.

Yep. They say about 60,000 Russian soldiers have died. That's how many Americans died in the whole Vietnam war. — frank

We shouldn't forget how many Ukrainians have died too. This is a huge conventional war and likely it will cost over 100 000 killed in less than a year, which just tells about the ferocity of the fighting.

Ukraine has exceeded expectations by far. But stopping now as opposed to later, would be better for everybody.

Again- I could be wrong. — Manuel

An outcome where Putin can declare victory, having achieved a land bridge to Kyiv and have gotten more territories annexed so that he can declare "Novorossiya" to part of Russia again seems hardly a great outcome.

You can then wait a decade, rebuild your army and attack again.

No, the real problem is that Soviet Union created a continuum for a Russian Empire that should have ended just like Austro-Hungary or any historical multiethnic Empires, which had their roots in Medieval Times. Putin's idea of Russia is imperial. It is a Russia spread across many nations with Russians being on top. It's obvious in the grandeur of the backdrop that Putin uses, with retro-19th Century uniforms worn by the soldiers at the moment when the new territories "joined" Russia.



Since the Soviet Union collapsed peacefully, people like Putin think it was just an accident. Hence the way to redefine the "official" idea of Russia has to come through a similar path as Serbia had with Yugoslavia. And just like the present day Serbia, Russia will likely be cautious of the West even in the future, but will hopefully shed it's imperial ambitions. And that will likely happen with a military defeat.

But speaking of the cost of the war, what do you think accounts for the continuing support of the West? Fear for their own safety? Or what? — frank

Obviously Putin wouldn't stop at Ukraine. Perhaps the territorial annexations might end there, yet the fact is that Russia would want to enlarge it's sphere-of-influence to the West. Finlandization: my country knows the game extremely well.

From Putin's view he is restoring things after the greatest tragedy in history, the fall of the Soviet Union, with a re-emerging Russia taking it's place where it deserves to be against the decadent, failing West.

Yet the war seems to be going well for the Ukrainians... :up:

Watching News at 10pm on BBC1 and Ukraine is reported as having taken back, two villages near Kherson, in one of the annexed regions. How the Russians respond now will reveal how this horror will develop, I think. — universeness

Russian warfare can look like an epic fail to observers. But the key is that where everybody else would simply quit, they can keep failing until the other side is totally exhausted even if it has been victorious. Just look at what Russian fighting looked like from summer 1941 to Stalingrad.

If you have a point, please make it more explicit. — frank

Isaac is very angry that we would forget what kind of a bully the US has been. We might forget this because it's obvious that Russia is the aggressor here, Ukraine is the victim and the US is aiding Ukraine. Isaac would be extremely angry if now the US would look good as a "white knight in shining armour" coming to help a victim. Because the US is bad. Remember all the children that died in Iraq thanks to the sanctions etc. Even if this is a thread about the war in Ukraine, that doesn't matter.

Since the Russo-Georgian war, it ought to be clear that Putin doesn't care at all about economics or business relations. Good business relations are just a possible way to blackmail others, if it comes to that. Putin is politician who isn't interested in how well the economy works: he's in the Empire rebuilding game. Wars are his policy, right from the start of his era.

That this is the main conclusion people are drawing from this conflict, a new cycle of nuclear proliferation has certainly already started. The actual use of nuclear weapon would simply super charge that in my opinion. — boethius

Then we will wake up in World where two nations have used nuclear weapons against their non-nuclear armed opponents. But the interesting question is: would we actually panic?

Some will likely panic. Go immediately for playbook response Putin (or the Russian doctrine) wants with escelate to de-escelate: immediate cessation of all military operations, an immediate cease-fire on the lines now. I think the Pope would call for it, I guess. Or people of that status.

But what if the response wouldn't be that? Ok, they used a 5 kt tactical nuke. And the war goes on... Then what? The US and the West has had a long time to think about this.

So the pretext here then SSU is that ignoring the above trilateral agreement was because of the perceived threat of NATO expansion.

Not worth the paper it was written on then. — Deus

That was the time when people where genuinely thinking that Russia might someday join NATO. And the Cold War was over. An NATO was interested in "new threats" like fighting terrorism.

I think it's quite obvious what the objectives have been for Russia. First Crimea, then Novorossiya. Pretty hard to deny it. Same old line since Catherine the Great.

However, even if nukes are used and there is no escalation to nuclear exchange (which I would put my money on, and not simply because it's the scenario I can spend money), the use of a nuke usher in crazy nuclear proliferation and that would get out of hand later. — boethius

I think the response to Putin using nuclear weapons wouldn't be a nuclear escalation. And naturally the West is trying to make a sincere warning that it would be a bad thing to do.

We can agree then that Mearsheimer was correct in that Ukraine giving up it's nuclear weapons was a very bad idea: with them it could have deterred Russian imperialism.

When Ukraine regained its independence at the end of 1991, 176 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), 44 strategic bombers and some 1900 strategic nuclear warheads remained on its territory. Under the terms of the May 1992 Lisbon Protocol to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I), Ukraine agreed to rid itself of the strategic weapons, but Kyiv made clear that certain questions first had to be resolved.

Ukrainian and Russian negotiators tried for months to find answers to those questions. In September 1993, however, it became apparent that the bilateral discussions would not succeed. U.S. negotiators thus engaged in a trilateral process with Moscow and Kyiv. The exchanges played out over the fall and resulted in an agreement early in 1994. Presidents Bill Clinton, Boris Yeltsin and Leonid Kravchuk signed the statement on January 14 in Moscow.

The Trilateral Statement confirmed that Ukraine would eliminate all of the strategic nuclear weapons on its territory and accede to the NPT as a non-nuclear weapons state “in the shortest possible time.” In return for this, the statement provided that Kyiv receive:

Security assurances. The United States, Russia and Britain would provide security assurances to Ukraine, such as to respect its independence and to refrain from economic coercion. Those assurances were formally conveyed in the Budapest Memorandum of Security Assurances signed in December 1994. (Curiously, Kyiv has never invoked the memorandum, not even during its dispute with Moscow over Tuzla Island in 2003 or when the Russian government applied trade sanctions in 2013 to dissuade Ukraine from signing an association agreement with the European Union.)

Compensation for highly-enriched uranium (HEU). Russia agreed to provide fuel rods for Ukrainian nuclear reactors containing low enriched uranium equivalent to the HEU removed from the nuclear warheads transferred from Ukraine to Russia for dismantlement.

Elimination assistance. The United States agreed to make available substantial Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction assistance to cover the costs of eliminating the ICBMs, strategic bombers, ICBM silos and other nuclear infrastructure in Ukraine.

While there were minor hiccups, implementation of the Trilateral Statement went fairly smoothly. The last train with nuclear warheads from Ukraine arrived in Russia on June 1, 1996, and the last of the strategic bombers, ICBMs and ICBM silos were destroyed by 2001.

Simply because the Western media repeats again and again bold claims without justification, does not make it the default position that any dissenters must overcome a high burden of proof to critique, just makes it propaganda. — boethius

Bold claims without justification like prior 24th of February that Russia was posed to attack Ukraine. :smirk:

Bold claims without justification like Ukraine has regained territory. :snicker:

MacArthur wanted to use nukes in Korea. Thank God he got cashiered. It must have been tempting though, at Chosin. — RogueAI

After 1945 usually victorious countries in war aren't having a public (or private) debate of using nukes. It usually is brought up when things don't look so good. I think there was some debate/discussion to use nukes with Dien Bien Phu, but that naturally didn't go anywhere.

Whether Putin can be baited into doing it on the other side though remains open. I think he's unpredictable enough to do it if he's got nothing left. No one thought he'd invade the way he did in the first place. — Isaac

Wait a minute! Didn't Joe Biden talk about it a lot? You remember? The thing you didn't believe was true / was just US propaganda?

Anyway....

Lyman has fallen. Although Russians did manage to withdraw. And some advances seem to be made by Ukraine in the south too.

Also, the purpose of taking the airport is to use it. Failure to secure it through combined forces is part and parcel to the failure of the whole operation as detailed in this comparison of Hostomel with the failure of Market Garden in WW2 — Paine

Yes, the later waves coming by cargo aircraft couldn't land as the fighting continued. Basically the Hostomel Airport (or Antonov Airport) I guess was the furthest Russian forces came.

And they were relieved, weren't they? — Tzeentch

And withdrew later.

Sure they can. Airports are a classic target for airborne assaults. — Tzeentch

With the assumption that the airborne force can be then quite quickly be relieved by a ground force. Nobody thinks of making a landing deep in enemy territory and then just assume that they can be evacuated by air from the area if faced by a heavy counterattack.

Once an airborne detachment has occupied an area, it can basically hold on to that area until relieved. And that's basically it. Operation Mercury was the first, and the last, time when an air assault was planned to do basically everything.

It seems to me taking out airports would be a key strategic goal regardless of their intentions. — Tzeentch

Not with landing paratroops on them. This was classic way to use paratroop landings to ease the attack towards the capital.

Do notice the location of Hostomel airport:

But I do agree with this: once the defender will defend, then any kind of "Thunder run" into the city is nearly suicidal. Russian's learnt this during the first Chechen war. Yet taking the capital is quite important since the times of Clausewitz.

However quickly they noticed the mistake, to assume in the first place such an attack was a real blunder. It's quite clear that this quick strike into the heart of Ukraine was attempted. The heliborne landings in Hostomel Airport just next to Kyiv show the intent what Russians had.

The only real blunder I have seen from the Russian military is the sinking of the Moskva. — Tzeentch

Not the failed attempt of quickly reaching the capital?

The Russians’ armored columns were not dispersed and spread out across a massive plain, as in the World War II during the largest tank battle in history at the Battle of Kursk (500 east of Kyiv). In hindsight the Russian desire for need for offensive speed and mass, vs dispersed security and maneuver, was a poor strategy. Instead, these massive, armored columns were attacking in formation on multiple lane highways in convoys that were up to 40 miles long. Javelins fired from up to a mile away with precision accuracy, completely destroying the first tanks or BMPs could stall the whole column. Then pre-sighted artillery claimed the majority of Russian casualties. For several days the 40-mile armored column north of Kyiv was stalled after sustaining massive casualties.

Or not the "special military operation" having to resort mobilization of reservists after a successful Ukrainian counter attack? If I recall, Putin was first saying that conscripts wouldn't be used in the operation. :smirk:

Putin annexes territory, from where he is retreating from...

Consider the question the following way:

A) Which one of them can simply be terminated by a degree from a judge?

B) Which one of them can terminated by it joining another, by annexation or invasion by force?

C) Which one of them dies basically as the last human person believing in it dies?

If we understand "Church" as Religion, then it is at least the most persistent. In our secular society the Church may look as to have the least power, but looks can be deceiving.

Ah, that generalised Russian uselessness we hear so much about. An entire nation just generally a bit crap. — Isaac

You just hold your racist hints to yourself.

Corruption makes it Russia what it is. And Putin has created a kleptocracy. It's not the people themselves. Individuals are quite the same. How societies function is different.

And lastly, which likely you might not understand, is that many Russians understand that they attacked Ukraine, a country which didn't threaten them in any way. The reaction from the Russian people and the fighting spirit of the Russian soldier would be different, if their country was attacked and they would defend their country from an aggressor that describes them to be an artificial country. Then it would be Russians military aged men coming from abroad to join the military. (As in the case of...Ukraine)

I'd say it like this.

After the Russo-Georgian war in 2008, which Russia won only because Georgia was even more unprepared for the war (basically the field commander was one major) and because Russia had numerical superiority, the need to modernize and dramatically reorganize the armed forces was evident to all and was started by Putin.

Russia modernized it's forces equipment partly, that is true. Partly because it had a huge force to modernize. Planes and tanks couldn't be built in the thousands. Yet Russia could do a very successful military operation with the annexation of Crimea. It used it's most elite troops, the VDV paratroops and military intelligence soldiers (from the GRU) in this operation. Here strategic surprise was achieved and the information warfare of the intelligence services worked extremely well. And this good performance lead to people think that Russia had really modernized itself.

Then it performed well in Syria too, yet with a rather small contingent. Basically it had two squadrons of mixed combat aircraft and air base Air Defence + security troops in Syria. Some mercenaries were used, but in all this was a small force. Yet it helped Assad substantially. Again everything looked good.

Then suddenly this Putin decided to do an all out attack against Ukraine and start a huge conventional war that basically involved the majority of Russia Army ground forces. Not only the elite troops, not only a small limited force that then could be backed up logistically by other troops. Nope, basically everything was involved! Then the attack came as a surpise to many in the forces, as the official line was that Putin wouldn't be invading (which some in this thread believed).

Here the Potemkin village collapsed. Basically it would be stressful to any armed forces that is used to limited operations, then suddenly face an all out conventional war.

And needless to say, the Ukrainians themselves have a lot to do with the poor performance of Russia. They did't collapse as the Afghan National Army. They had been preparing for this from 2014. Not only was the Ukrainian armed forces quite large, it also had the will to defend it's country (unlike some here seem to forget and think it would have been better for them just to surrender).

Hence the theory isn't that Putin chose a crappy army. More like the crappy Russian system couldn't make it any better and the really crappy idea of invading Ukraine cemented the outcome.

Gazprom already declared force majeure earlier this year, apparently due to its "problems" with turbines. — SophistiCat

These "problems" were already called out, when Siemens did provide the services. But of course this is just theater, basically.

So you're not on board with the idea that Putin is ideologically committed to expanding the Russian empire militarily? — Isaac

Everybody agrees with that. The majority also believe that Putin is ideologically committed to expanding the Russian empire. :smirk:

Likely heightened security on oil infrastructure, apparently.

Let's not hope it goes to things like in Saudi-Arabia...



At least now (with the Baltic gas pipeline sabotage) Gazprom can refer to force majeure and not be worried about fines from not holding up gas deals.

Happier times with Nordstream earlier... Angela and Dmitri had fun back then. Now literally the thing ended with bangs.

And the point of this fact is simply to establish the obvious that the Kremlin has obviously been thinking about conflict in Ukraine since 2014, if not before. — boethius

Actually, they did thought about far earlier to get Crimea. Just after the Soviet Union collapsed, the debate started like this:

(LA Times, 22nd May, 1992) Running the risk of provoking Ukraine to new heights of fury, Russia’s Parliament on Thursday ruled invalid the 1954 transfer of the balmy Crimean Peninsula to Ukraine.

In a move sure to bring relations between the two superpowers of the Commonwealth of Independent States even closer to the boiling point, the Russian Parliament declared that Soviet leader Nikita S. Khrushchev’s “gift” of the Crimea to Ukraine 38 years ago “lacked legal force.” It called for negotiations on the future of the choice hunk of land.

Although Russian lawmakers stressed repeatedly that they were making no territorial claims on the Crimea, Ukrainian diplomats perceived the resolution as the harbinger of major political--and possibly military--battles.

See here

Perceived very well by the Ukrainian diplomats, actually.

The US is giving (not selling) arms to Ukraine, providing training and managing strategy and tactics "indirectly" via "advice", and providing the intelligence required for planning and targeting. These are obvious acts of war along with the sanctions. — boethius

This was basically totally normal during the Cold War.

That the other side aided his ally/proxy was totally in line. So in line that actually there was far more "military advisors" operating the complex hardware in Third World countries than now. Especially the Soviet Union was good at this... and had it's military forces in civilian clothes.

(The Parade step shows just who these advisors are:)


So you start again...

However, I am at least putting undisputed facts about the past together, rather than telling a story — boethius

And then continue...

1. War has been going on since 2014 with Russian language and culture suppression, that, at minimum, is likely to attract the Kremlins attention as a problem to deal with. — boethius

Russian language and culture suppression made Putin do it!!! Gentlemen! Here are the facts, not stories,... :snicker:

Russia heavily invests in modernising its armed forces since 2014 as well as preparing for sanctions. That the Russian economy and currency survive essentially maximum sanctions is I think good evidence they adequately prepared for the latter, and that one of the first things they do is launch a hypersonic missile is good indication of the former; the war launched, by definition, after accomplishing these pre-conditions. — boethius

So according to you Russia's commitment to modernizing it's armed forces is proven by a single test firing of an experimental missile? The massive footage of Russia scraping the bottom of the barrel with 50 year-old tanks sent to Ukraine, with the mobilization troops in conditions that show total unpreparedness for them doesn't refute this modernization, because they test whatever exotic missile they have? Incredible pro-Russian propaganda. :rofl:

7. Lastly, we know Putin is a sophisticated enough in his thinking and planning to navigate the halls of power for several decades without any major self-inflicted harms to himself or Russia, and certainly doing better than his predecessor which is the only objective comparison standard. Certainly anyone can lose their grip on reality at any moment, but there is no indication that's true of Putin so far. — boethius

Whow. I really haven't heard such blazing over the top apologism from anyone in this thread for Putin.

Yeah, I think I'll stop as this is pointless.

However this war ends, Ukraine will end up with a large incentive to develop nuclear weapons and missiles capable of reaching strategic targets in Russia in order to avoid future attacks. — Count Timothy von Icarus

For a country that freely gave away it's nuclear deterrent, it has already hinted that it would do this. If Ukraine wouldn't be in NATO, this would be the totally logical policy. Hence it's far better for Ukraine to join NATO after this war as developing a nuclear weapon is still quite costly in this World.

I think Putin wants to stop where he is and just defend the (soon to be) annexed territories. If they're part of Russia, attempts to take them back are supposed to be an attack on Russia. — frank

That's what Russia wants the West to think, at least.

Given the inner turmoil in Russia, people fleeing and protesting and so on, the timer is on for Putin, much more than at any stage during this war.

We can hope this doesn't cause him to break and go for broke, or he could be thrown out by the military. Too many variables in the equation. — Manuel

As I said earlier, if Putin opts to use tactical nukes, he is playing Russian roulette, and not only in figuratively.

However, let's remember that when Russia annexes the territories of "Novorossiya", then it's the scenario that it has trained for in past exercises: that NATO attacks Russia and they end they conflict with using nuclear weapons. So it's a possibility...if it becomes a full-scale route in Ukraine. So I think it's a possibility, however small.

I believe Putin’s tactical nuclear weapons are unusable. Even if their vehicles do work, the minute they turn their engines on to move they will be picked up by US and NATO intelligence.

I think this is a little too much bragging from Hamish de Bretton-Gordon. Is NATO going to attack them when the launchers move out of their garrisons? Hell no! Hence you are talking about a truck-size target that can be stored in any storage facility, garage, cowshed or where ever. It can be anywhere. The idea that NATO could pick up all the tactical nukes is simply ludicrous. In fact, just how elusive the HIMARS launchers have been tells how difficult this really is.

And what if the launchers are now in Belarus. as Putin has said? (See here) Is NATO going attack out of the blue Belarus?

Let's look at history:

1) During the Cuban missile crisis the US was blissfully ignorant about the deployed Russian tactical nukes in Cuba. Hence if US Marines would landed in Cuba as in one plan, the beaches would have been nuked. At least Fidel Castro was very eager to use them if the Americans would attack. The existence of Russian tactical nukes in Cuba was only later found out, which horrified people like former defense secretary McNamara.

2) During Desert Storm Saddam Hussein launched Scud missiles against Israel from the Western Desert of Iraq. The US lead alliance put a lot of airpower to hunt them down and inserted special forces there also, which meant that a lot F-15E and other fighter bombers flew across the desert in vain to find the mobile launchers. To my knowledge, no Scud-launchers were found and destroyed. (If the Special Forces would have done that, you bet there would be the motion picture about it. Now we have the memoir of a SAS soldier in Bravo Two Zero which tells how this didn't happen). And Iraq is a Goddam desert and Iraq's military isn't the sharpest tool in town.

Hence I think this goes a bit to the propaganda side...

The EU has never said anything like that — Olivier5

Well, not literally, just as the UK hasn't been referred to the 'ex'.

And now there is complaint that because we don't want to cooperate on any these issue, the EU insists on having some checks on the flow of goods into its territory. How very dare they! — unenlightened

Ok.

How about the border between Finland and Sweden and non-EU member Norway? If I move to Norway or a Norwegian moves to Helsinki, the only thing I have to do is to change my address. That's right, no applications, no passports, no permits needed. No control at the border. After changing my address, then tax officials notice it and I'll start to pay taxes to the new country where I live.

The EU-Norwegian border hasn't been a problem. Absolutely none.

Why?

Because Norway is part of the European Economic Area, the EEA.

This was an option that was thought about in the case of the UK, but for some reason, this wasn't OK for either UK or others. Perhaps being a member of EEA would have been too much for the Brexiteers, I don't know. So you ended up with a clean table. That's the problem here.

I was just pointing out that ‘partial mobilisation’ is about putting people on the military payroll into battle. If someone is willing to sign up and take money that is their choice. — I like sushi

Actually it is to mobilize reservists, those who already have served their military service (conscription). Those that are on the military payroll have already been through. The idea was to use only these volunteer soldiers and not the conscripts in Ukraine. But the likely fact is that conscripts, those that aren't raw recruits, have been used in Ukraine for a long time already.

The fact that students have been put into service, who have since Soviet times been free from conscription just tells how badly the process has been.

You can see from the photos, that obviously not everybody now mobilized is in his twenties:




Russia doesn't have a territorial army (?), that's what I guess the UK has.

The people fleeing are likely fleeing to avoid the next step - full mobilisation. — I like sushi

What is full mobilization? 25 million people in the case of Russia? I think they worry that the partial mobilization will call them.

The tiny little problem is that those 25 million men, even if Russians, aren't just sitting idly in a bar drinking vodka. Even 1 million to the army means basically 1 million crucial jobs lost from the society. That makes a huge economic loss for the economy. Then Russians should look at their history and notice what can happen if a many million strong army is demoralized and in no mood to follow the leaders. And the simple fact is that the limited arms and equipment limits the size of the army.

In fact, we can see totally clearly this from the case of Ukraine. It's happy with a reserve of 700 000 and large part of that isn't mobilized and not on the front. Yet when you take all the military aged men, you are talking about over 7 000 000 men in Ukraine. Russia has military aged men 33 million and of whom theoretical reservists are 25 million. Even a million strong force would be a huge problem to arm, train and deploy. And notice then that would be far bigger than the Putin's security system policing the people.

Finally even our country wants to follow Trump. If visas are unobtainable and things go the way as they are going now in Russia, illegal entry could be an issue.

The Border Guard wants to build 130 - 260 km fence on our 1300 km border with Russia. The project is estimated to take 3 to 4 years. Now there is no fence or anything physical on the border. Just an narrow corridor in the forests with border stones marking where the border is.

(This isn't reality yet between Finland and Russia)

Unfortunately, there is no getting past Brexit, hence the slogan 'Get Brexit done'. The Irish question cannot be resolved. As long as North and South were in the EU, the border could be open and thus demilitarised, and the EU functioned as an overseer of fair play. But separation entails a border, so the options are the breakup of the UK and reunification of Ireland, or the imposition of a manned border and resumption of civil war. — unenlightened

I wouldn't see it on such dramatic terms.

I think the EU itself ought to look at this from a new light. OK, so the Union has now an ex. Yet it's an ex that everybody actually still likes. For example, for my country the UK is a very important trading partner. Hence the new "ex" should be approached just like other non-EU countries, like the US or Canada (or Norway), where good relations are an objective for the EU also. There's still so much to be done together with the ex, just like taking care of security issues, which just cannot be forgotten. The EU simply is in utter denial, if it thinks this ex of it's doesn't matter anymore.

For the EU the stance that "I don't have anything to do with you now after we broke up" simply doesn't cut it.

RT used to be excellent for non-Russia related news. — Manuel

That was the irony. Yes, to report on the US they were able to act like investigative journalists. But anything concerning Russia or it's allies is a different matter. And of course, when the Kremlin wants to push something, everything close to journalism goes out the window and it's Goebbels-time. Sad, but they could be OK journalists, if they want.

No nukes will be used in Ukraine. It's just too close to Russia, the fall put would be spread all over western Russia. Assuming the missiles themselves don't crash in Russian territory by mistake, as happened recently. — Olivier5

I sincerely hope so. There is a small possibility that Putin will follow the "escalate to de-escalate" doctrine especially now when directly from the Stalinist playbook, the sham referendums have been done with North Korean success on the occupied territories. Especially if not otherwise the Ukrainian counter-offensive cannot be stopped.

A tactical nuke wouldn't do much in the battlefield: Ukrainian battlegroups simply aren't packed together that a tactical nuke would do much. It would just create huge panic and likely condemnation to Russia even from it's allies. Naturally the panic, especially in the West, could do wonders. People would genuinely think that nuclear annihilation is the next logical step and will happen the next day. Arguments for immediate cease-fire would be heard a lot.

Likely in that case, if tactical nukes would be used against Ukraine, suddenly the Ukrainian defence forces would start to inflict unseen damage to the Russian forces. The Russian Black Sea fleet would have many ships sunk in rapid secession, Ukraine suddenly would leash this awesome barrage of cruise missiles etc. I think this is the issue that US tries to communicate to Russia. Hopefully they are credible in their threat. (And it's obvious that this isn't said publicly as that would make it just worse)

I do think that neither side wants all out WW3. Putin's game would literally start to be Russian roulette for him.

The fact is that it seems now as things are going good for Ukraine, some Western countries are starting to limit the arms shipments to Ukraine. Germany hasn't been keen to send Leopard 2 main battle tanks to Ukraine and what the Ukrainians are short of is modern Western air defence systems.

Ukraine’s relations with Germany have soured this week, with Kyiv asking why Berlin reneged on its promise to provide heavy weaponry.

Tensions over Germany’s provision of Leopard tanks and infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine — or lack thereof — came to a head this week when Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, publicly asked why Berlin was backtracking on a pledge made to send these weapons to Ukraine.

“Disappointing signals from Germany while Ukraine needs Leopards and Marders now — to liberate people and save them from genocide,” Kuleba said on Twitter, adding that there was “not a single rational argument on why these weapons can not be supplied, only abstract fears and excuses.”

See here

More precisely, Putin has apparently lost Tokaïev, Kazakhstan strong man. — Olivier5

I think that many leaders are starting to notice that Putin's fragile position.

That some ex-Soviet states are starting to have border troubles shows also that they have noticed that Russia is weak, incapable to intervene. Let's remember that Armenia and Azerbaijan didn't even wait for the Soviet Union to collapse before they started their war with each other.

And Armenia and Azerbaijan are again on the edge:

on 12 September (2022), a series of clashes along the countries’ border resulted in dozens of casualties on both sides, giving rise to fears large-scale hostilities could resume. Despite a Russian-brokered ceasefire in November 2020, violence continued to bubble up periodically. But the latest incidents are of a different degree, and took place far from the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which has long been at the heart of the dispute between the two states.

And then there are other border clashes:

(Sep 17th 2022) Kyrgyzstan reported “intense battles” with Central Asian neighbor Tajikistan on Friday and said 24 people had been killed in the latest outbreak of violence to hit the former Soviet Union.

Both of the small impoverished landlocked nations have accused each other of restarting fighting in a disputed area, despite a ceasefire deal.

When the cats away, the mice come out to play?

Gasprom just issued an ultimatum to Ukraine's gas operator Naftogas. The likely outcome of this is that unless Ukraine consents to deliver Russian gas to Europe at no charge, this pipeline will be cut off as well, reducing the current amount of Russian gas flow to Europe by half. — SophistiCat

This is the interesting fact: gas to Europe has flowed through Ukraine by the Brotherhood / Soyuz pipelines. Yeah, all out conventional war going on...but don't that let hinder gas trade.

I think here Putin made an error by cutting the gas (or making threats to cut it) far too earlier in the summer. Yes, it's a natural response to counter with something when the West makes all kinds of embargoes against you. But now West Europe has had time to replenish it's stocks, to look for new resources and above all, get it's people informed that the winter might be filled with electricity rationing and even blackouts. Without doing so, without responding in any way until now, I do assume that Western politicians and especially Germany could have been gotten caught with their pants down.

Germany's Olaf Scholz obtaining a LNG deal with the UAE few days ago.(I bet he's as relieved as he looks in this picture):


Imagine if the question where to get gas now, when Russia is out, would have been asked only so late and people in Berlin would start looking at the World map today?

Keir Starmer is probably smart enough not to use the B-word against Truss's heavies, all he needs to do is keep quiet and pick up the next election.. — Tim3003

I think the UK should get passed Brexit finally and tackle the present problems. It has been a nice thread, but Brexit is so Elizabethan. You already have some young Britons that have never lived under Elizabeth II's reign.

There can easily come a new "winter of discontent" with the inflation and all the problems. Then conservatives MPs have gotten so rowdy that they can think of change the prime minister if they don't like the person, which tells about their hubris.

I think labor can win the next elections. Assuming if Labour politicians don't do something insanely stupid, go hyper-woke, attack their traditional base and go ideologically full Marxist. If they really try, they can push their supporters to vote some other party. Yet, I think Sir Keir Starmer doesn't look like to declare himself non-binary and veer the Labor party even more to the left than Jeremy Corbyn.

But you know better, I'm just a foreigner...

Kazakhstan will guarantee the safety of Russians fleeing their country as Russia moves to conscript hundreds of thousands of army reserves to fight in Ukraine, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev has said. — Olivier5

And this is very interesting.

Has Russia lost Kazakhstan?

Seems that it was an explosion that caused the gasleaks in the Nordstream gas pipeline:

Swedish geological stations notice an explosion: See here (in Swedish)

Reuters picked on it:

STOCKHOLM, Sept 27 (Reuters) - A Swedish seismologist said on Tuesday he was certain the seismic activity detected at the site of the Nord Stream pipeline gas leaks in the Baltic Sea was caused by explosions and not earthquakes nor landslides.

Russia has declared it cannot repair the leaks because of the sanctions. So a bit of hybrid warfare?

Estimates seem to be very variable as to how many Russians are leaving. Has anyone done any sums yet? — unenlightened

First of all, one should look at net flows. People come also back to Russia.

Here's of statistics of Russian citizens entering Finland (yellow) and leaving (white):

As for Finland (and the EU) Russians need visas, the volumes of people to coming to Finland is small. Yet it's the only Western border open for them (perhaps Norway might be up North). Kazakhstan doesn't have visa requirements and there is a large ethnic Russian population in the country.

From the Border Guards site of the following days of Russian citizens (link here:

Date___Incoming_Outgoing___Net inflow
26.9.___ 7 743_ 3 662_ 4081
25.9.___ 8 314_ 5 068_ 3246
24.9.___ 8 582_ 4 199 _ 4383
23.9.___ 7 667_ 3 545_ 4122

Hence several thousand coming in every day to Finland. And a lot of new cars. So these aren't poor people leaving Russia, but basically people the Russian economy would need. To put this into perspective, last year in Finland there were about 70 000 people that came from the former Soviet states, majority naturally Russians. Of course many go onwards to other Western countries.

Here's the stats by Frontex:


Georgia and Kazakhstan likely have far more. The stats may have difficulties to keep up.

The issue under discussion was how Ukraine would be victorious, or Russia not-victorious, through military means, such as the collapse of the Russian state. — boethius

Uh, by continuing to do what it has done now. :smirk:

An argument with zero supporting evidence except anecdotal that some Russians aren't happy — boethius

Yes, we have heard your argument that everything is just anecdotal. The quarter million leaving Russia are just anecdotal also. :snicker:

For, the US' analysis was that this would be Russia's "Afghanistan" and so weaken Russia in conventional military terms, which is certainly true in terms of using up Soviet stockpiles. — boethius

Actually the war has lweakened Russia far more than the war in Afghanistan did the Soviet Union. That Russia is using Soviet stockpiles is already quite telling. Meaning that the modern stock has already gone or very limited.

(T-62 tanks, which were first introduced in 1961 to the Soviet arsenal. Production stopped in 1975.)