The Ukraine War (Ukraine-Russia Conflict)

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Fuck it, I’ll make the topic anyway.

Well, it’s finally happened. More surprised it didn’t happen sooner when Ukraine threatened to develop nukes if they weren’t given NATO membership.

Needless to say, this is definitely going to affect the world, but me over here in the US can’t feel it as heavily as those of you finding it too close for comfort in Europe.

Speculation is just rampant, to say the least.

Sorry if this seems half-hearted, I just don’t know what to say that’s hasn’t already been said (without stirring up anything stupid in the process). I’ve been rather desensitized over the years when it comes to geopolitics.

 

[Ricochet]

Something that was bound to happen. Putin awaited for not better moment than this to invade Ukraine: weakened western leadership and waging war on their own citizens, COVID hysteria, media obsession with banal stuff,etc

Edited February 24, 2022 by Tornado
Next time you think of posting something that dumb, reconsider.

[KingMario05]

Regarding the topic at hand, I just hope Ukraine can pull through and that the economic damage is too much for Russia to bear. But given how bonkers Putin was in his last speech... I'm don't think he'll back down.

Edited February 24, 2022 by Tornado

[Strickerx5]

2 hours ago, Ricochet said:

BTW Russia's declaration of war was signed on February 24th in their timezone, which means it coincides directly with the 40th birthday of Christian Weston Chandler.
THE MERGE... IS ON !!!

1. Christine, 2. People are in immediate danger and you're actually bringing up chris chan.

Consider this your only warning, stop.

 

And honestly this also goes for anyone else. Word of warning, if you're making a post here (or on any other serious world event thread) and you find yourself even remotely making a reference to any kind of sonic shit, stop typing and don't post it. Any further crap like this is just going to be met with strikes.

[SenEDDtor Missile]

It might be more accurate to title this "Russia's Aggression/War Against Ukraine". They're the aggressors of this situation.

What frankly confuses me the most about this is: What exactly does Putin gain out of doing this?

Is he dealing with something back at home that threatens his iron fisted grip on power or something?

[Shiny Gems]

4 minutes ago, SenEDDtor Missile said:

It might be more accurate to title this "Russia's Aggression/War Against Ukraine". They're the aggressors of this situation.

What frankly confuses me the most about this is: What exactly does Putin gain out of doing this?

Is he dealing with something back at home that threatens his iron fisted grip on power or something?

From what I have been told, he is most likely after the resources of Ukraine. I could be wrong, though.

Either way, this is pretty much horrible news to be had.

[Ricochet]

Sorry,  my first and last shitpost here., totally on me. No need to overreact tho, specially clarifying It's "christine", if anybody really cares.

 

Anyways, seems like China is also making some moves on Taiwan. Which is a totally predictable move from them. What really boggles my mind is how much the western society left their guard open against a couple of power hungry bastards like Putin and Jinping. "We are together in this", "We will come out stronger" and any other cheesy plandemic slogans which the entire world's organizations and major leaders echoed as they were pouring their trust over an authoritarian regime that was tormenting Uyghurs and dissent for years.

A fatal mistake in foreign politics was made, and Putin took the chance to predate on it. I wonder whether our leaders will actually unite to properly answer this aggression.  For people that fought so much for their autonomy, successfully ousted a tyrant in 2014, seems pretty undeserving to deal with the consequences of a western world that unanimously decided to weaken themselves in every single aspect because panicked over a virus that killed less than 0,1% of the confirmed cases.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

2 hours ago, SenEDDtor Missile said:

It might be more accurate to title this "Russia's Aggression/War Against Ukraine". They're the aggressors of this situation.

I would, but frankly, being on the Internet for so long has taught me that people are either stupid or pretending to be stupid to get something. That, and we here in the US haven’t had a stellar record either. Either way, I quite frankly have had enough of geopolitical finger pointing, so I’m keeping it as neutral as possible.

As for what Putin gains? He gains more buffer space to keep NATO at bay, and possibly the resources of Ukraine to use at his disposal. It also brings him much closer to Kaliningrad near between Poland and the Baltic states, and gives him a better edge in the event conflict breaks out with NATO.

There’s a reason behind it—Putin isn’t stupid, if there was nothing to gain from this, he wouldn’t have done it.

EDIT: Also, to anyone who might be thinking of donating aid to Ukraine, I’ve heard that PayPal is not available in that country. Don’t @ me too much, I glanced at a few random tweets on Twitter that mentioned this and said anything that asks for PayPal for Ukraine are scams. You’re welcome to verify this if it’s true or not, I’m just trying to do some part of keeping people informed.

[Ricochet]

A good way to support them is purchasing multimedia from ukrainian authors (indie gamedev, composers,etc.). Another useful support source here too.

[KHCast]

Wouldn’t nato be closer to Russia’s borders if Ukraine became part of them tho…? So wouldn’t this be doing the opposite of giving them space from nato? 
 

Also while he certainly might have things to gain here, not sure what he gets from basically telling the entire world to fuck off, basically dangling the threat of nukes in front of anyone that would dare interfere.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

2 hours ago, KHCast said:

Wouldn’t nato be closer to Russia’s borders if Ukraine became part of them tho…? So wouldn’t this be doing the opposite of giving them space from nato? 
 

No, at least not in the way you’re thinking about it, because Ukraine hypothetically becoming part of Russia would give them more space to keep NATO away from their capital of Moscow. It’s basically the Soviet Union all over again in how it extended its borders during the Cold War, and makes it more dangerous and difficult for NATO to attack Russia in return.

Geopolitically speaking, the more space Russia puts between their capital from NATO, the better. Put another way—Russia wants to keep NATO away with a 10 foot (or rather a 600,000 kilometer) pole from Moscow.

This is precisely the strategy used during the Nazi invasion of the USSR during WWII in grinding the invasion down enough for a counteroffensive.

EDIT: Mind you, I’m no expert in Geopolitics, it’s just something I dabble in for fun.

[Blacklightning]

If you haven't seen it already, the speech from Ukraine's president right before the rockets started dropping is some pretty powerful stuff and I urge people to spread it however you can:

On another note: according to Ukraine, a platoon of Russians surrendered because they didn't even know they'd been deployed to kill Ukrainians.

[Tornado]

Russia taking over the Ukraine gets them control of their pipeline that passes through there before getting to Western Europe, it gets them the not insubstantial amount of natural resources the Ukraine has, it gets Russia some buffer space where they can set up a puppet government to sacrifice if anything happens, it gets them all the stuff that the various Western countries have given the Ukraine since 2014, it takes the focus away from the laughable amounts of corruption in the Russian government, and it gets them the ability to actually make use of the Crimean area since it had largely been cut off from the outside after Russia annexed it.

 

 

 

But more likely than not, especially with how immediately quick Putin was to threaten the entire rest of the world with a nuclear strike for military interference, is that it gets something back that the old Soviet hardliners (like Putin) feel they never should have lost: It gets them a major part of the USSR, and it gets it to them in a way that they can rub in the West's face for being powerless to stop them. Europe was slow to come to the Ukraine's defense and has (if anything) become even more reliant on Russia for energy needs since Russia annexed Crimf. Georgia, Crimea, Chechnya. He's been building up to this over 15 years of territory expansion and nation building and murdering people inside other country's borders to test the resolve of the EU and he decided he was going to waltz right into the Ukraine because he knew he could do it and Europe wouldn't actually do anything to stop him.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

What makes me curious is how this’ll play in the long run. Sanctions are one thing, but those take years to have any effect and people want something done now.

Biden says Russia will pay by becoming an international pariah, but it’s pretty obvious they don’t seem to give a damn at the moment as people are concerned with the event that’s happening right now.

And, honestly, I get it—after ending a 20 year long conflict in the Middle East, would you really expect him to send troops to another one? It’s a damned if you do, damned if you don’t kinda situation. That on top of the distance the US is from the conflict only further complicates things.

Though to be honest, I think they should’ve called Putin’s bluff and bring Ukraine into NATO and dare him to try anything. But I’m no diplomat or analyst, so feel free to tell me if that would’ve been a bad idea—I’d like to think he wouldn’t act on a nuclear threat if Ukraine was admitted, but I know better than to be too sure (which is why I would be absolutely atrocious President if I was in Biden’s place).

[Tornado]

The main issue with the Ukraine being in NATO in the period between Crimea and now (aside from Russia pissing and moaning about it) was that the government was itself kind of a mess and particularly vulnerable due to the power struggle in 2014 that put the current government in charge and the country's long uneasy relationship with Russia. Obviously it hasn't played out like the "stable," US-trained and heavily-funded Afghanistan government's immediate "never fired, dropped once" aftermath of the US leaving that country; but with how volatile the eastern part of the country is even if Russia hadn't been actively stoking the civil war fires there was real fear from a couple of the European NATO members that stuff given to the Ukraine could at any moment be pointed back at them.

 

 

Like Erdogan is a piece of shit but the government of Turkey isn't going anywhere or under much of any threat from anybody.

[Osmium]

On 2/24/2022 at 1:44 PM, SenEDDtor Missile said:

It might be more accurate to title this "Russia's Aggression/War Against Ukraine". They're the aggressors of this situation.

What frankly confuses me the most about this is: What exactly does Putin gain out of doing this?

Is he dealing with something back at home that threatens his iron fisted grip on power or something?

I have a feeling that at least part of this was a meant to be a distraction from Russia’s present failings (falling oil prices, high inflation, large overall economic downturn, etc.). Putin’s approval ratings have dropped considerably in the past few years, so this is standard posturing politics. 
 

This though will be remembered as one of the most poorly planned acts of aggression in all of modern history. Literally not one good thing has come out of this for Putin. Complete logistical nightmare, several actions breaking Geneva convention rules, catastrophic fall in stock market prices (before sanctions mind you), and complete alienation on the geopolitical scale. Dissent in Russia is growing at an enormous scale and Russians are speaking up reguardless of the consequences. When counties like Kazakhstan are refusing to aid Putin, you know he’s screwed up big time. 

Other Russian officials are publicly condemning Putin’s actions. This is going to hurt Russia’s reputation for decades after. We can never say for sure, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Putin “has an accident” soon. 

[Tornado]

It's also not going anywhere near as successfully as Russia hoped to this point, and the casualty rate is allegedly something like 20:1 in favor of the Ukraine.

[SenEDDtor Missile]

On 2/26/2022 at 8:00 AM, Osmium said:

I have a feeling that at least part of this was a meant to be a distraction from Russia’s present failings (falling oil prices, high inflation, large overall economic downturn, etc.). Putin’s approval ratings have dropped considerably in the past few years, so this is standard posturing politics. 
 

This though will be remembered as one of the most poorly planned acts of aggression in all of modern history. Literally not one good thing has come out of this for Putin. Complete logistical nightmare, several actions breaking Geneva convention rules, catastrophic fall in stock market prices (before sanctions mind you), and complete alienation on the geopolitical scale. Dissent in Russia is growing at an enormous scale and Russians are speaking up reguardless of the consequences. When counties like Kazakhstan are refusing to aid Putin, you know he’s screwed up big time. 

Other Russian officials are publicly condemning Putin’s actions. This is going to hurt Russia’s reputation for decades after. We can never say for sure, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Putin “has an accident” soon. 

Aye, seems like Putin finally overreached and bit off more than he could chew. Maybe his "successes" over the past few years in influencing the world ended up causing him to become egotistic and complacent.

[JezMM]

I don't have much to add other than how my heart bleeds for the images I'm seeing and how just utterly... utterly livid I am with the Russian government and Putin.  Like... he could just not, y'know?  We're JUST clawing our way out of a pandemic that we as humans have barely any control over, but no we need to add another, entirely preventable, human*-inflicted tragedy to world history.  The fact that the Russian government lies so brazenly and insanely also drives me up the wall.  It is hard to see what the endgame really is here - I've read that Putin basically stuck himself in a situation where there's no real way this can continue much further than Ukraine considering almost the entire rest of the world hates him and will take military action.  But if he was to turn around he'd look weak to Russia, so, knowing what kind of a person** Putin is, the choice is obvious.

*usage of the word here being very generous, frankly
**ditto

The main reason I am posting is just to correct those who are referring to the country as "The Ukraine" - this is apparently disliked by those who live there, and sounds as strange to them as saying "The Germany" or "The France".  On a similar note, when y'all are discussing this in real life, the city of Kyiv is pronounced as a single, quick syllable, not like "kiev", the foodstuff.  I also agree that the thread should be renamed to make it clear that this is Russia invading and Ukraine defending, this is not a war of two equal sides.  A handy post with a couple more tidbits here - usage of language is important to not misconstrue what is going on for more casual observers.

[CrownSlayers Shadow]

Ukrainian sniper took out a top Russian General.

 

[Dreadknux]

Honestly, my heart breaks for the people of Ukraine. They've done nothing wrong and just because some bully next door cries wolf (on a very tenuous claim) they deserve being subjected to war? Makes me sick. Just so incredibly angry that Putin has also been able to largely get away with a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, especially following the annexing of Crimea some years ago (surely the writing was on the wall when that happened?). But everyone outside of Ukraine is scared of nuclear world war, I guess.

As much hate as I have for Putin for doing this though, I can't even throw my full rage at Russia in general in all of this, because I'm reading reports that even some of the Russian troops are out of the loop as far as things are going with Putin's strategy. Things like, soldiers genuinely believing they were going into Ukraine as a humanitarian effort (before realising that, actually, they were invading a sovereign independent nation), Russian prisoners of war turning out to be not much older than teenagers... The Russian president has really done a number of his own people, and the sheer density of the misinformation and lying rhetoric coming from Russian politicians on TV is mega-frustrating.

The Ukrainian president has been a pillar of strength and an absolute badass throughout all of this (surviving three assassination attempts overnight, reportedly), and I wish him and all in Ukraine all the safety and success in protecting their own nation from an invading oppressive force. Unfortunately, things are unlikely to change unless Putin has a change of heart (unlikely) or he is removed some other way... I'm hoping the growing number of protests from Russian citizens in their country evolves into a full on revolution.

--------

I will also just say, in response to:

On 2/24/2022 at 7:42 PM, Ricochet said:

Sorry,  my first and last shitpost here., totally on me. No need to overreact tho, specially clarifying It's "christine", if anybody really cares.

I'm not going to labour the point or anything, this is just a friendly/polite note in case you weren't aware: people actually do really care about deadnaming (especially trans people, who face that kind of abuse every day) and it's quite a disrespectful thing to do. Doesn't matter what you think of someone, or what you think of their supposed state of mind, Christine (or anyone, really) deserves to be addressed as they identify, just as a basic human courtesy. So no, it wasn't an overreaction (I believe the tone of the warning was appropriate in addressing any potential future shitposts in the thread too, not just addressing you).

Honestly, I'd rather we avoid any mention of that person for a number of reasons, so I'd rather not go on about this anymore, but I wanted to at least make that general point very publicly clear. I hope that's understood.

[Ricochet]

4 hours ago, Dreadknux said:

Honestly, I'd rather we avoid any mention of that person for a number of reasons, so I'd rather not go on about this anymore, but I wanted to at least make that general point very publicly clear. I hope that's understood.

Agreed on this, there isn't anything worth discussing about that person in this forum.

Now back topic's subject. It's baffling that some people from this side of the globe, without any kind of affinity towards Russian, feel compelled to support Putin as if they were a bunch of vatnik zombies. Mostly because Putin is anti-globalism, anti-lgbtq,etc.

I can't stress enough how much the major eastern regimes despise the west, for them, we are deeply corrupted and going non-stop way down the decline (as they could speak tbh). Even if the western world has not few serious issues, It's still way better than the alternative Putin and Jinping bring to the table. Hell, part of the west problem is the trend of copying their authoritarian practices.

The disdain of progressivism only earns the right of being a third class citizen below Putin's boot.

Edited March 4, 2022 by Dreadknux
EDIT: Edited out a misgendering of said person. I don't want to believe it was intentional, but you've just been told about this. Don't misgender people maliciously/in bad faith or you'll be suspended. Just take the L and move on. ~ Dread

[Rabbitearsblog]

All I have to say is I'm terribly upset at this turn of events. Honestly, this whole situation has been bothering me ever since it started. I can't believe that Putin would just attack Ukraine like that.  I do applaud the people of Ukraine holding their ground though.

I also applaud the Russian protesters for trying to stand up to protest this war.  Hopefully, the amount of protesters in Russia will rise up enough to take down Putin once and for all.

[Eggman Fan]

Hey thought it would be helpful to drop a link to a donation website incase anyone can spare some money. Global Giving (The one The Pokémon company donated too) is one I suggest.

 

 

Thanks for reading if you did, and I hope you have a good day.

[Tani Coyote]

So let's put some comparative findings in this. 

It's been well-covered what Putin is after; resources playing a hand is par the course, as authoritarian regimes tend to prioritize private goods they can reward their supporters with. 

But I think there's more to it as well. Putin is pushing 70 and no doubt a lot of people are whispering about who will replace him. A lot of autocrats know that sickness or old age means they either resign or quite possibly get killed; a show of force is a great way to try and shore up support among both the elites and his sizable support base in the population. 

As a paranoid autocrat, he has no doubt surrounded himself with yes men by this point. Which can explain why this invasion is going so horribly: he most likely was hearing what he wanted to hear, not reality. Consider: the Ukrainian military reformed itself after 2014 to avoid losing more territory. Meanwhile, the Russian military has largely continued Soviet strategy, that is, being prepared more for a post-nuclear war than a conventional war: a lot of Russian vehicles have excellent radiation shielding, but poor armor. 

Thus, despite the fact that on paper Russia should have utterly dominated this, they clearly are nowhere near where they expected to be militarily; that is without considering the enormous worldwide response and the catastrophic effects it is having on Russia's economy. Then there's the fact Putin is losing control of his security forces; Zelensky has survived several assassination attempts and this is apparently due to people within the FSB tipping off his security detail. 

And with the recent exposition of Russia's war crimes in Bucha and elsewhere, I expect the Ukrainian people will be fighting even harder than they did before. 

What about the future?

Based on Russia's progress... I don't know if they're actually going to gain much more. Their gains have been relatively minimal (it's debated whether they actually seized more than the roads and some towns, leaving huge patches of possible guerrilla territory open), and their bodies keep piling up. A lot of their troops are surrendering for relatively good conditions as POWs. 

But Putin does not care about Russia. He cares about himself. If he pulls back, he will most likely be overthrown, if not killed. He has created a mafia state, killing or imprisoning anyone who could allow a peaceful transfer of power. He will not get a peaceful retirement in a dacha like Khruschev, but quite likely go the way of Beria, Nicholas II or Trotsky instead. 

So his incentive will be to pour more and more into a hopeless war until something breaks. Given the state of the economy, that could come sooner rather than later. Russia's people are not stupid. Unless they're a hardcore Putin supporter, I don't think they're going to blame the West for this situation. They know who brought this on them. The would-be Tsar, who might very well end up like the last one.

What happens if he falls within Russia, who knows. Maybe another strongman with some more sense takes power. Maybe we get another Gorbachev eager to reform their society. Or maybe another civil war. Who knows. Putin has worked so hard to crush organized opposition and the independent media it's hard to really guess what might bubble to the surface if he falls. 

I don't want to speculate too much just yet, but, the results are likely to reach far beyond Russia. If Putin falls (which he's highly likely to unless he secures some huge strategic victory over Ukraine), I would not be surprised if we see a ripple effect; revolutions come in waves. Belarus, Chechnya, and Syria are just a few regions that might see their governments rapidly destabilize in the aftermath. The various Central Asian republics, even if they maneuver to secure Chinese support, might see uprisings as well. Kazakhstan just recently had its wave of impressive demonstrations, after all. 

Like the cornered spider, Putin is thrashing with his fangs out. But increasingly, he's being reminded that he is just a spider.