Ukraine war mega thread

[sabang]

I quite liked that Post because it is written in approachable, commonsense type language. But I gather you think it OK then, for China to put a missile base in Cuba? Neither country would be breaking any treaty, or international law. Uncle Xi wants to know. He might start off with a practise run in PNG.

[baldrick]

Uncle Xi wants to know. He might start off with a practise run in PNG

he will be more worried of regime change in russia

[David48atTD]

Less then 4 min BBC video ... Ros Atkins on...Russian gas and oil - BBC News

Ros Atkins looks at Russian gas and oil; how it connects to the war in Ukraine, and the EU's efforts to cut economic ties with Russia.

[Switch]

Oh dear, it's an-


Unpopular Opinion: NATO is Responsible for the Conflict in Ukraine



When news broke, “Putin is Invading Ukraine,” my initial reaction was that the international community must band together against Russian aggression. I also questioned whether the US and NATO should have taken a harder line with Russia. Or if the United States could have upheld its agreement to protect Ukraine against the threat or use of force under the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances signed in 1994. They did not because, as Obama said, Ukraine is not a core interest to the United States like it is for Moscow, and “we have to be very clear about what our core interests are and what we are willing to go to war for.”
Like most things in life, it often isn’t black or white; especially when it comes to politics, it’s almost always grey. After reflecting over the last few days on the context in which the conflict arose. I can only conclude that NATO and its allies are responsible for the current conflict in Ukraine.
The Ukrainian people are defending their own country, rightfully so. And Russia is protecting its strategic core interest and national security, as any country would. To understand this better, let’s take a moment to look at it from Russia’s perspective.

Ukraine is Russia’s Monroe Doctrine

What Putin ultimately wants is a halt to NATO / EU expansion in eastern Europe, which includes:

• Halt to the eastward expansion of NATO / EU membership, the signing of defense treaties & political meddling of its neighboring states.
• Stop to the routine military exercises and deployment of missile defense systems & WMDs by its borders.
• End to the funding and support of anti-Russian neo-Nazi extremist

To Russia, the issue on Ukraine is of national security and core strategic interest, or by definition, “The bottom line… what a nation wants and what its citizens are willing to go to war over and to die for.”
Here’s what the current Director of the CIA, William Burns, had to say about Ukraine and NATO back in 2008.
“Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all red lines for the Russian elite (not just Putin). In more than two and a half years of conversations with key Russian players, from knuckle-draggers in the dark recesses of the Kremlin to Putin’s sharpest liberal critics, I have yet to find anyone who views Ukraine in NATO as anything other than a direct challenge to Russian interests.”
He also goes on to say that It’s “hard to overstate the strategic consequences” of offering Ukraine NATO membership, predicting that it would “create a fertile soil for Russian meddling in Crimea and eastern Ukraine.”
How Russia feels about NATO expansion isn’t a secret; Putin has explicitly expressed his views on more than one occasion. While the public may largely be unaware, it’s well understood in Washington.


Here’s a map of NATO expansion from 1998 to 2022; NATO has moved practically to Russia’s borders.
[IMG]https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/1*5q5aexF3F8EzgBz99lFtQA.png[/IMG]

NATO’s incremental expansion of NATO / EU membership eastward, routine military exercises, and deployment of missile weapons systems by Russia’s borders are undeniably provocative and hostile from the Russian perspective.
Putin & the Kremlin see the incremental encroachment of Russia’s national security and strategic interest simply unacceptable, and Ukraine is where they draw the line. Pressure within the Kremlin has also mounted for Putin to act and defend Russia’s interest.

Review of NATO’s Actions

If peace and stability in Europe were the objectives, the pragmatic approach is to explicitly state that Ukraine will not be a part of NATO / EU and allow for Ukraine to be a neutral state. In other words, a neutral buffer zone between NATO and Russia. Professor John Mearsheimer, who predicted the Ukrainian predicament today in 2015, has advocated for an economically strong but neutral Ukraine approach.

Instead, what NATO has done over the past decade is string Ukraine along with the hope of joining NATO / EU. Provided Ukrainians with military weapons. Trained and supported anti-Russia extremists in Ukraine that have shelled a predominately Russian population in eastern Ukraine for the last eight years. Last month, Biden’s Secretary of State Anthony Blinken again stated that NATO membership was open to Ukraine.

NATO’s approach thus far has made little sense if peace was the objective. Assuming good intentions, it’s bad policy that views geopolitics from a narrow, one-dimensional perspective.
Despite this, some argue from an ideological point of view that Ukraine has the right to choose who it wants to align itself with as a sovereign nation. And NATO / EU has the right to allow whoever it wants to be part of its alliance. (Putting aside political meddling considerations. AKA the current government resulted from a takeover supported by the West to overthrow the previously corrupt and elected pro-Russian government). Essentially, the argument boils down to the “right of a nation to choose” trumps other considerations.
To that end, I would ask how we expect the United States to react if Russia/China built a missile system in Cuba or Venezuela and talked about forming a security defense alliance. Or if Mexico harbored and trained ISIS. It’s happened before in the 1960s, the “Cuban Missile Crisis.” And if you recall, we responded by threatening nuclear war. In those circumstances, there’s no question the United States would invade with the use of force, a self-sovereign nation or not. And Cuban/ Venezuelan citizens will die defending their country against the US invaders
But will the world rally against the United States and stand up for Cuba’s freedom to choose, like Ukraine? I think it unlikely. Then the question we should ask is why because it feels awfully hypocritical.
But I digress because the focus of this post isn’t about ideological beliefs of right and wrong. It’s about a pragmatic approach to peace and stability in Europe.

Where to go from here?

The immediate goal should be to de-escalate the situation while providing humanitarian aid to Ukrainian civilians. Resuming talks to settle the conflict diplomatically with concessions should be the utmost priority. Escalating the situation is extremely dangerous because Russia has few options but to raise the Ante. And as the saying goes, “Corner a dog in a dead-end street, and it will turn and bite.”
A policy approach that looks to create a neutral Ukraine will go a long way in maintaining peace and stability in Europe. Ukraine should also disassociate and purge neo-Nazis from its government. And an effort to normalize relationships with Russia, understanding that it will take time, is also strategically prudent for the West.
Unlike China, Russia is economically weak and a declining superpower. They have nukes and oil, but not much else. There is little reason for the West not to pursue a more cooperative posture. It isn’t the cold war anymore. The primary cause of the hostility between NATO & Russia is rooted in mistrust rather than conflicting core interests.
But a pragmatic and logical approach to foreign policy will take political courage. Because sadly, American politics and policy is often driven by opinion polls rather than sense. And Russia isn’t very popular these days.

Unpopular Opinion: NATO is Responsible for the Conflict in Ukraine | by Animus Perspective | Mar, 2022 | Medium

This might have some truth in it, except that Russia is NOT a democracy and the Russian people don’t really have a say in the matter.
This is war based on one man’s archaic belief that his country should have a say in other sovereign nation’s decisions.

You and the Australian electorate would very quickly deny such opportunities to, let’s say China, if they tried to pull the same stroke. It matters not that China is Australias major export destination. Democratic principles over ride such matters.

Its the same in Europe, who now depend on Russian gas supplies, but they disagree withPutis War agains Ukraine. They have seen the writing on the wall for the future of EU cohesion, and those democracies refuse to be held to ransome.

Not much to do with NATO really, other than the free choice of any democracy to decide which club to join. Ukraine cannot allow Putin’s War of paranoia to dictate what they decide to do.

Will Australia bow down to Chinese demands for Australian imports of their choice? I think not, and they may be a dictatorship, but they don’t suffer from paranoia like Putin does. The Chinese will get raw material from somewhere else, just as Europe will modify its choice of fuels to drive industry and domestic demand.

Stop being such a Putin sycophant, or have your views ignored like the lickspittle OHOh.

[bsnub]

This is war based on one man’s archaic belief that his country should have a say in other sovereign nation’s decisions.

He gambled everything and lost. Just for fun, what happened to that massive Russian column?

[Switch]

Interesting that since the Warsaw Pact collapsed and most of them joined the EU and or NATO, how many forays have any of those countries threatened to attack or weaken the Russian monopoly? NONE!

Russia was getting by based on their control of propaganda at home. Now the world has been exposed to Putin’s War and Putin’s Paranoia. Issues, issues all fall down …..

[bsnub]

Issues, issues all fall down …..

You may be too old to watch this kid, but I do like him a lot. He shows how fucked the average Russian is because of these sanctions. It is a good channel over on YT.

[Switch]

You may be too old to watch this kid, but I do like him a lot. He shows how fucked the average Russian is because of these sanctions. It is a good channel over on YT.

I saw it a few days ago. He’s a bit of a selfish dick, but he did highlight the Russian rip off over international payments. The drop in the Rouble is being passed on to everyone in Russia with foreign currency. They are obliged by law to convert 80% of foreign currency into Roubles! It’s also been made retrospective to any funds earned from January this year!

If people don’t comply they risk arrest and Russian prison.

[Iceman123]

^
Enjoyed the video, seems like a straight up guy

[misskit]

Captured Russian officer apologizes to Ukraine for ‘genocide,’ begs for mercy

A Russian commander captured by Ukraine condemned Moscow’s “genocide” invasion – saying in a remarkable televised statement that the troops were duped into believing Kyiv had been overthrown by Nazis and needed liberating.


National Guard Lt. Col. Astakhov Dmitry Mikhailovich, who was captured along with two other soldiers, said that he had been told they were being sent to help Ukraine because it was “dominated by a fascist regime” and that “nationalists and Nazis had seized power.”


“Obviously, this information was unilateral information,” Mikhailovich told reporters in a video that emerged Monday.

VIDEO Captured Russian officer apologizes to Ukraine for 'genocide'

[helge]

remarkable televised statement

Isn't that a breach of the Geneva Convention ?

Just for fun, what happened to that massive Russian column?

If it has been flattened by the turkish drones, I'm sure that the videos had been posted on TD already.

By you

Just for fun


Still parked ?

[OhOh]

Economic war will test the West’s resolve

The economic and financial consequences of this war are now coming to the fore

Liam Halligan 6 March 2022 • 6:00am

"The war in Ukraine is “a catastrophe” for the global economy, the World Bank president observed last week.

“It comes at a bad time for the world, because inflation was already rising,” said David Malpass, a former US Treasury minister who has headed the Washington-based institution since 2019.

While the media focus is rightly on the military aspects of Vladimir Putin’s brutal invasion, and the humanitarian fallout, the economic and financial consequences of this war are now coming to the fore.
Malpass is right – both US and UK inflation was already at a 30-year high. Now, Russia’s military incursion into Ukraine has sparked full-on economic war between Russia and the West. These two conflicts combined, in my view, will push inflation deep into double digits on both sides of the Atlantic.

Brent crude oil touched $122 earlier this week, up from around $70 in December, with European natural gas hitting an all-time high – as fears swirled about the continuity of Russia’s vast energy exports.
Higher crude costs, and profiteering by unscrupulous retailers, means motorists could soon face £2-per-litre petrol and diesel, almost 40pc up since the start of this year.
to the fore.

Household utility bills are already set to average almost £2,000 per annum from April, as the Ofgem energy price cap is raised. That average could now, based on post-invasion wholesale energy costs, hit almost £3,000 this autumn.Prior to this conflict, Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor, outlined a package of measures to support cash-strapped households with their utility bills from next month. He will now surely need to do more, perhaps as part of this month’s upcoming Spring Statement.

Countless UK companies similarly face spiralling fuel costs, but with no price cap protection – many of them energy-intensive manufacturers in Red Wall constituencies across the Midlands and North of England, seats which switched to the Tories in 2019.
As electricity prices escalate, such companies, often significant local employers, could easily be wiped out. Again, with the Government’s House of Commons majority contingent on retaining Red Wall support, Sunak has little choice but to act.

But the inflationary impact of this war goes way beyond energy, of course. The S&P GSCI index, tracking a wide range of commodity and raw material prices, surged 16pc over the last week alone. And no wonder.

Russia and Ukraine between them account for a third of global wheat and barley exports and a fifth of all maize – much of it shipped through Ukrainian ports such as Kherson and Odesa, cities now mired in conflict.

Even if civilian container ships could physically access these ports, which they currently can’t, they would anyway now be part of an astonishing ban imposed last week by leading sea-freight companies.

Maersk of Denmark, Singapore’s Ocean Network Express, Swiss-based MSC, Germany’s Hapag Lloyd and CMA of France, five of world’s six biggest cargo-shipping lines, all announced their refusal to shift containers with goods originating from or bound for Russia, as the Western world ramped up sanctions.

The other member of the big six sea-freight lines, Cosco of China, has also suspended services from Ukraine – ostensibly on safety grounds.
Over the last week, much has been made of Western companies announcing they will wind down their Russian interests.

With almost 150m consumers, and an unmatched natural resource endowment, Russia has attracted serious foreign investment since the Soviet Union collapsed.
BP owns a fifth of Russia’s largest oil company Rosneft, while Shell co-financed the Nord Stream gas pipeline to Germany and has a massive stake in the Sakhalin-II oil and gas project in Russia’s far east. Industrial thoroughbreds such as Ford, Boeing, VW and Siemens have extensive Russian operations.

Media and tech giants like Warner Bros, Disney and Sony, Apple and Dell have also forged deep Russian links.

All these large corporates have either suspended their Russian operations or pledged to sell off stakes – and shouted loudly about doing so, given the reputational damage, while war in Ukraine rages, of being connected to Putin’s Russia.

Yet I’d say the little-noticed freight-shipping moratorium is of far more economic significance, given the huge amount of bulk commodities Russia supplies to the world – not just food, but industrial metals like titanium, palladium, copper and nickel, vital for car-making, semi-conductor manufacture and other basic industrial processes.

The shipping giants are like commercial red blood corpuscles, carrying the oxygen-equivalent goods that allow the vital organs of the global economy to function.
The inability of Western firms to ship consumer goods to Russia will hurt, depriving them of what has become one of the world’s most lucrative markets. Of far more significance will be the inflation generated by the lack of commodity and raw material exports from Russia – not just energy, but food and metals.

Consider also that fertiliser is made using natural gas and potash – with Russia and its ally Belarus accounting for two fifths of the world’s potash exports. That explains why fertiliser prices are soaring across the Western world. And the resulting rise in cultivation costs will, inevitably, drive up food prices too.

Much has been made of the extent of the Western world’s sanctions – and rightly so. To see the likes of the US and UK joined by Switzerland and Japan in effectively declaring economic war on Russia is jaw-dropping.

Preventing Moscow from using its vast reserves of dollars, euro and pounds to shore up the rouble, by effectively sanctioning Russia’s central bank, is an astonishing move.

As the currency has collapsed, losing around a third of its value against the dollar since Putin’s invasion, the rouble-denominated savings of millions of middle-class Russians have been seriously dented – undermining support for the Kremlin.

This rise in fuel and food prices across the world “will hit the poor hardest”, the World Bank said last week. Hundreds of millions of poor households in food-importing nations across the developing world, thousands of miles from Ukraine, will certainly be hit hard by this conflict.

But millions of British households will too. Yes, Putin’s aggression must be countered, and the UK is rightly doing its bit to attempt to isolate the Russian economy and pressure the Kremlin.

But as fuel and food prices and utility bills skyrocket, there will undoubtedly be an impact - political and economic - here at home."

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business...wests-resolve/

[OhOh]

He shows how fucked the average Russian is

everyone in Russia with foreign currency

The average Russian has foreign currency accounts.

Amazing Russia, all are foreign currency speculators. I thought they were "coin" collectors.

[Troy]

Isn't that a breach of the Geneva Convention ?


If it has been flattened by the turkish drones, I'm sure that the videos had been posted on TD already.

By you

Just for fun


Still parked ?

Indeed it is and I wouldn't read too much into either side's attempts at persuasion.

Nato can't do anything with the threat of nuclear war. Ukraine will just need to accept that the longer the war goes on the more destruction and death will occur. The inevitable is just being prolonged. Russia will not stop until either Putin is ousted or the Ukrainian government is replaced with a pro Russian one.

The offer of extraction should have been taken while it was on offer. Dead heroes are no use to anyone in this world.

The alternative is a preemptive strike and pray you take them all out before they work out what's going on. No-one will risk it...

[misskit]

The average Russian has foreign currency accounts.

Amazing Russia, all are foreign currency speculators. I thought they were "coin" collectors.

I heard a Russian say just a couple of days ago on the news that most Russians don’t even have a bank account.

[Troy]

Have friends in Munich who have already taken in refugees from Ukraine. They are arriving by the train load.

Let's hope the UK drop their silly migrant rules and allow several thousand a safe refuge.

[OhOh]

If it has been flattened by the turkish drones, I'm sure that the videos had been posted on TD already.

Unfortunately, the undisciplined lot stopped for a piss up, as there were puddles on the road. Everyone knows Russian tanks seize up when they get wet.

The local lasses arrived with vodka and the vodka/pussies are still flowing.

[helge]

^^I hear that there are hundreds of vacant flats in Knightsbridge.

Now wouldn't that be something if a bunch of ukranians moved in there ?

[Backspin]

Pro Russia rally Sydney Australia at Russian embassy
Telegram: Contact @istorijaoruzija

[Backspin]

He gambled everything and lost. Just for fun, what happened to that massive Russian column?

This has been the biggest propaganda offensive in the world media ever. Ppl really believe Russia is losing this war.

Pretty much everything that has been said in the Western media about this war is a complete fantasy. The same thing happened in the first days of the Russian offensive in Syria. All these fantasies about dead Russian troops , broken down aircraft , non functional air defense systems , you name it. And none of it turned out to be true.

[Backspin]

From RWA

A lot of big western brands are in the process of closing their businesses in Russia. Ikea, H&M, spirits sellers, Apple, Nike, Disney, Paramount, car brands

For some of them Russia provided a non-trivial % of their revenue but virtue signalling was deemed more profitable

What unites all those companies? It's woke capital providing "conscious" recycled polyester junk with obese models representing them

And now they're leaving a pretty large market behind, ripe for the taking for some geniune capitalists. exciting times for sure

No more american movies in cinema, only anime and french kino from now on

No more ikea particle board junk but solid oak furniture from udmurtian forests

No more H&M grrrl power t-shirts but chinese silk robes and linen rubakhas

The age of imposed philistinism is over

[misskit]

^ Can I laugh?

[helge]

The age of imposed philistinism is over

Was there ever one ?

Free Palestine !

[misskit]

People on both sides are getting killed in a unnecessary war and here are fools are bragging about getting rid of H&M. For god’s sake. Someone needs to wake up.

[russellsimpson]

Unpopular Opinion: NATO is Responsible for the Conflict in Ukraine

A very thoughtful article imo. Therer is no justification for Russia's full on assault of its neighbour and now isn't probably the time to question Ukraine's (Zzelensky) approach to Russia immediately prior to the conflict. I couldn't help but be struck by Zelensky's intransigency on the question of Ukraine's membership in the EU and NATO. This membership was obviously going to be a non-starter for Russia. It was also going to be a non starter for NATO members. I wish the Americans would have made it more clear to Ukraine that they should 'shut the fuck up' when it came to NATO membership in particular. Zelensky was playing with fire and now the whole of Ukraine is being unfortunately burned. This is just my opinion and I know not a very popular one. Fire away if you must.