In the news

It's more the latter, we believe your a pawn of the west and your country represents a threat to our Sovereignty and way of life, therefore we will take everything east of the Dnieper as a warning and buffer

You just don't get good old fashioned invasions anymore.

/remindme 6 weeks.

One for the conspiracy thread: the worldwide aluminium shortage, for eg bike parts, is being caused not just by covid issues but by military industry buying it all up. I wonder if the internet conceivably has the info available to anticipate a military attack by identifying certain product shortages.

On trend militaries would use stainless, Ti or crabonz.

Putin believes that Ukraine isn't really a viable country and is effectively still part of Russia. He goes crazy about them claiming to be a separate democracy with their own elections. When Ukrainians had their Euromaidan demonstrations and demanded to join the EU, he put his snipers on a roof and killed lots of them in an attempt to fake a revolution, which he could use as an excuse to invade, in order to protect Ukraine's government. The plot failed because the snipers left lots of Russian army bullet casings on the roof.

He's very emotional about Ukraine. Plus he's a hostage to Russian nationalism. Lots of Russians agree that Ukraine's independence was the worst loss resulting from the USSR's breakup. Putin has painted himself into a corner recently. He has to win something out of all this. Having been in power for so long he must be thinking about his legacy, which ideally ought to be restoring a bit of Soviet strength and glory. He might think that conquering Ukraine would be worth the resulting sanctions in the long term because it would bind all the other central European former Soviet countries very tightly to Russia. A sort of rebirth of the USSR.

I haven't read it. But doesn't everyone think that?

Isn't that exactly why Bidden had the call with Putin to warn him of the sanctions that would be put in place? Or are we talking about total invasion and annexation of the whole country?

What I think is interesting, is what the UK will do. If we're being real, we are possibly in one of the strongest positions to influence the regime. A mass asset freeze combined with financial restrictions on all crown dependencies who didn't implement the same freeze would focus the minds of Putin's backers very quickly.

However, it's not something you could do twice as you wouldn't expect oligarchs to leave themselves open to it happening again.

He's very emotional about Ukraine.

Not to be rude but when I read posts like yours I wonder if people have looked at a map of the black sea.

Before Crimea, and Turkey going off the deep end this is what Russia's access was looking like. Worrying about, and preventing Ukraine and Turkey joining/being tied with the EU (and Ukraine from NATO to) is about as rational as it gets.

1 Attachment

I think most people think that it is a method to leverage negotiations rather than an invasion being an inevitable outcome

Is this also a play to test Bidens desire to get involved?

I really struggle to understand the mindset of the Russian leadership outside of a frame of reference of hankering after the glory days of the USSR and a personal, kleptocratic, oligarchic power grab. I think that's partly down to my failure to understand what the practical consequences for a country of (for example) the extent of its "sphere of influence" has. Given how much gas we buy from Russia it seems completely irrational to think that nobody wants to trade with them, so why imperil that trade through acting like a violent, bullying psychopath? Likewise, anyone who thinks NATO would ever seriously consider launching a land-assault via Ukraine must be assuming that western leaders have never read a single history book. There's every opportunity for Russia to evolve into a modern, trade-forward part of the international community that has access to both China and the EU, so why continue to isolate themselves diplomatically? The only explanation I can come up with is rank nationalism and gangsterism.

The Doomsday Watch podcast, Putin episode gives a good insight.

What I was surprised by, by the thread I posted was the speculation that Russia have concluded they can weather any economic sanctions and with current energy markets, they probably won't have a better opportunity to take this land and not destroy the economy

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v44/n01/james-meek/did-i-invade-do-you-exist

That story about the guy who put Whitty in a headlock is seriously worth reading

https://archive.md/QSWr6

(Daily Mail has some additional humourous transcribed nuggets compared with the Guardian article posted on the last page)

A choice quote:

Judge Goldspring said calmly: 'Your cavalier approach to the severity of these proceedings is breath-taking.'

'What does cavalier mean,' Chew interjected.

I really want to see the video of this

Howard muses: Can my opinion of London Estate Agents get any lower?

London Estate Agents: hold my beer

Judge, I'm delusional right now,' he repeated. 'I feel like I'm going to faint and all that stuff, judge.'

Its the "and all that stuff" which makes it more convincing haha

What have they done this time?

Belfast ones: Everything is a villa (lol no it's just a standard 3 bed semi) / finish to a high standard (is it now...) / unlimited potential (total refurb...) / close to local amenities (hope you enjoy traffic jams) 😁

https://archive.md/QSWr6

See frankenbike's post, above.

The thing about Ukraine is that Putin needs to get his tanks going while the ground is frozen in January.

You could imagine him building up a massive force on the border and station them there permanently as a kind of ominous threat. But to those in the know, that will start to look a bit silly once spring comes around and much of the terrain becomes impossible to traverse. So yeah, he kind of needs to shit or get off the can.

You can't be a true super power without a warm sea port.
Russia don't have one & so are constantly trying to creep their way around the black sea - they can't let Turkey hold the keys to warm water so need to get direct access to the med.

They do have a warm water port, Sevastopol. And their Black Sea Fleet has a squadron pretty much permanently in the Med.

Recently acquired. But still, how do you get out of the black sea?

What about Tartus?

Once all the methane is out of the ground in Siberia they will have a lot of new warm ports.