Can imperialists be Pariahs? I vote for this one.

It's the unconscious comfort of thinking that it couldn't possibility happen. — Manuel

Fear doesn't reduce danger. Whether we worry about it or not will not change anything, and certainly not the odds of it happening. Which are very low, I think.

It's just a form of escapism from the resident FSB influencer here, i.e. @boethius. Nothing more.

So when do we think Biden will award Putin the presidential medal of freedom for allowing the US empire to keep its head above water for a few more years? Two months? Three? — StreetlightX

NATO awarded him already.

They really should.

Time for a break from all this lay speculation... Let's hear from some independent experts.

Comes to mind that Germany is now sending 50 Gepard Self propelled anti-aircraft guns to Ukraine. Now that is a big number and so in all is the amount of weapons going into Ukraine. The vast amount of these are "legacy" weapon systems, meaning old Cold War era weapons that Ukraine can easily use as they already have them and they can be fielded immediately. The real issue is the rearmament that Germany itself will do after promising to raise defense expenditure from 1,4% last year (and 1,1% in 2018) to 2%. That basically means DOUBLING the defense budget of a very large country. That's where the defense contractors will make their money.



All thanks to the genius of Vladimir Putin.

As I was saying the biggest story emerging out of this crisis is Germany and therefore the EU waking up to the necessity to provide their own security.

Thanks to Putin, Trump and Johnson.

All thanks to the genius of Vladimir Putin. — ssu

Tsk tsk, look at you taking away the agency of the poor poor Germans, who clearly had no choice but to send machines of death to Ukraine to mete out additional blood.

Bulgaria and Poland ‘refused’ to meet Russia’s roubles demand https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/4/26/russia-warns-poland-bulgaria-it-will-cut-off-gas-supplies-liveblog

As I was saying the biggest story emerging out of this crisis is Germany and therefore the EU waking up to the necessity to provide their own security. — Punshhh

What do you mean?

All thanks to the genius of Vladimir Putin. — ssu

He is not a genius if he cannot find and destroy these things (or capture and sell for Rubles -there is an idea) - Russia does not even have spy satellites to track movements. Superpower and all that.

It's just a form of escapism from the resident FSB influencer here, i.e. boethius. Nothing more. — Olivier5

You state NATO passing nukes to Ukraine to nuke Moscow and Saint Petersburg is not only plausible in some version of reality, but also that Russia would be just like "so clever" and that technically Ukraine launching NATO's nukes would matter in the slightest.

You state I'm a "FSB influencer" for saying things you don't like and have no rational response to.

Yet somehow I'm living a fantasy.

And escapism from what? Obviously Russia could use tactical nuclear weapons, and obviously from a military perspective it is completely rational to use a bigger bomb if you have a bigger bomb, and obviously the long list of political reasons that no one would be using Nukes anywhere that we could list only 3 months ago is getting thinner by the day.

How close are we to literally no political reasons left to dissuade from the use of nuclear weapons? I have not said, only that the required context maybe far closer than it seems.

Ignoring the obvious by simultaneously dismissing the risk, while also believing NATO would give Ukraine nuclear weapons in such a scenario is the escapism.

Trump spoke of leaving NATO, Johnson has become disingenuous about the EU and Putin sees the EU as a threat. The EU can’t rely on the US/U.K. axis any more, for their security.

escapism from what? — boethius

From the current situation, where Russians forces have no easy way out, and are set to get pummeled for weeks on end. You are dreaming of a possible way out of this mess, and towards victory for Moscow. It will not happen, it's only a wet dream of yours.

From the current situation, where Russians forces have no easy way out, and are set to get pummeled for weeks on end. You are dreaming of a possible way out of this mess, and towards victory for Moscow. It will not happen, it's only a wet dream of yours. — Olivier5

Russia has nuclear weapons. Russia can use nuclear weapons to easily win battles. That is not a dream.

Claiming Ukraine will be given nuclear weapons by NATO or then could make their own nuclear weapons in a few months ... sounds familiar ... sounds really familiar.

Sounds exactly like:

From the current situation, where Ukrainian forces have no easy way out, and are currently getting pummeled for weeks on end. You are dreaming of a possible way out of this mess, and towards victory for Kyev. It will not happen, it's only a wet dream of yours.

Trump spoke of leaving NATO, Johnson has become disingenuous about the EU and Putin sees the EU as a threat. The EU can’t rely on the US/U.K. axis any more, for their security. — Punshhh

That's been true for a while, though.

Russia can use nuclear weapons to easily win battles. That is not a dream. — boethius

It is a dream because so far it has never ever happened. The USSR had nukes, and could have nuked Afghanistan to dust (or to more dust than habitual). Yet they didn't. They chose to withdraw instead, when they realized that they couldn't win. And the Russians will most probably do the same in Ukraine: lose a lot of blood and money, and then go home.

The sooner the better.

In the meantime, do get all excited about your nuclear fancies, by all means, if that brings you solace. The rest of us don't need to worry about it.

Ukrainian farmers are regularly filmed using their tractors to capture Russian military equipment all over the country. In the new game Ukrainian fArmy, you can play one of the scariest players on the Ukrainian battlefield: the tractor driver. Fight against the weather and "high precision" artillery strikes and capture as many Russian tanks, trucks and artillery as you can.

It needed a jolt to wake them up. Re’ Germany’s dependency on Russian gas.

I find it increasingly incomprehensible how Russia boosters can claim continuing this war is a good strategic choice for Russia. Even if you take a totally amoral, power politics look at it, all they are doing now is grinding down their military, losing irreplaceable hardware in large numbers, and absolutely tanking their economy as Europe looks to cut Russian energy imports by 2/3rds now and totally by 2027. The EU sucks at follow through, sure, but even half this plan would be a disaster. 42% of Russian state revenues come from energy exports. Europe buys 90% of those. Even partial implementation would tank government revenues, making rebuilding the military impossible even if they hadn't also lost themselves access to a ton of the imports they need for that.

Strategically, it showed they had absolutely no back up plan for Ukrainian resistance. They used all of 195,000 troops for this campaign. By contrast the US had 500,000 for the invasion of Iraq, a smaller country with more favorable geography, after they had decimated its military already and defacto partitioned the Kurdish third of it. They had almost a million troops for the Gulf War. Troops levels for controlling half of Vietnam, with a significantly smaller population than Ukraine, peaked at 1.4 million total.


:lol:

One of the videos of the guy who stole a $13 million AA system appeared to have had a BAC of at least 1.6 while doing it. Not good when the town drunk is stealing your elite hardware.

But what is Putin's choice? End the war with no concessions from Ukraine? I don't think he would remain in power if he did that. I don't think Ukraine wants to make any territorial concessions at this point.

But what is Putin's choice? — RogueAI

Putin is counting war of attrition, economic collapse of Ukraine because Ukraine won't be able to finance it's war indefinitely.

a BAC of at least 1.6 while doing it — Count Timothy von Icarus

That's about average in this part of the world I reckon... :-)

In an ex-USSR country, I once shared a frugal meal with a team of wheat harvesters, in the shadow of their combine harvester. And they were all washing it down with decent amounts of vodka of course, but the driver of the combine was drinking medical grade alcohol. He was taking very small sips in series of three, like once a minute, making a grimace each time... The bottle said 90%. They showed to me, laughing; me dutifully opening my widest occidental eyes. Then he climbed back on his exotic-looking* monster of a machine.


* Unlike, say, Japanese cars, Soviet designs for cars, planes and tractors etc. look very much like they come from another civilisation.

It needed a jolt to wake them up. Re’ Germany’s dependency on Russian gas. — Punshhh

Supposedly every country is going to be moving more towards self sufficiency, but not so much because of Russia, but because of the way the US went after Russia.

Remember, Russia attacked Ukraine once and nobody thought much about it.

Why is this time so different?

As I was saying the biggest story emerging out of this crisis is Germany and therefore the EU waking up to the necessity to provide their own security.

Thanks to Putin, Trump and Johnson. — Punshhh

It's good that you mention Trump, because that hasn't gone unnoticed. And even if Johnson's UK wants to be part of the defense of Europe (through NATO), being out of the EU does mean a lot. (Just like, well, Canada)

Tsk tsk, look at you taking away the agency of the poor poor Germans, who clearly had no choice but to send machines of death to Ukraine to mete out additional blood. — StreetlightX

Well, at first they did try to refer to their policy of not assisting countries at war (and their hypocrisy was immediately shot down by referring to the arms deals to the Gulf States, which fight the war in Yemen). Perhaps when they were sending helmets ot Ukraine, some smart ass Ukrainian proposed that they could also send coffins too. Were Merkel could have moved slower, the new Chancellor had to make a dramatic change and so did Scholz do: rarely has Germany or any country made such a dramatic 180 degree turn as this administration.

I think it has itself been startled how much it changed course.

Yet if Putin wouldn't have enlarged this war (that started eight years ago), this change wouldn't have happened. And my country wouldn't be applying to NATO.

Putin is counting war of attrition, economic collapse of Ukraine because Ukraine won't be able to finance it's war indefinitely. — SpaceDweller

I think Ukraine can outlast Russia in a war of attrition. They have high morale, the moral high ground, and Europe and America in their corner.

If this is true, then nuclear weapons are the next step. Why would Russia just call it quits?

I’m not getting into the likelihood, or not of such scenarios, there is so much we don’t know and so much unpredictability. My point was that if Putin is legacy building, that legacy won’t include instigating nuclear proliferation, or annihilation. A climb down would be preferable, with a renewed conviction that Russia was the victim in all this. So not so bad for his regime.

So this rubles-for-gas confrontation that Russia got itself into is pretty bizarre. To be clear, there is zero economic sense in it for Russia - it's pure political posturing. Although Europe says that agreeing to pay for Russian gas in rubles would violate European sanctions against Russia's Central Bank (not to mention that it would violate existing energy contracts), it's not like getting their payment in rubles would somehow cushion the blow from financial sanctions for Russia.

Lately, Russian Central Bank requires all Russian companies to convert 80% of their foreign currency revenue into rubles, whether they need them or not. Gazprom is no exception. And if the government wanted Gazprom to convert all of its European revenue into rubles, it could just order it to do that. The end result would be the same as if its customers were paying it in rubles, except that there wouldn't be all this brouhaha.