kanisatha

Well this is what Putin has come up with as his endgame. We've all been asking that big question: how does this all end? For Putin, his endgame options are all not very good. So this is what he sees as his best option: annex these territories, then claim that now that these territories are "Russian" any further Ukrainian attacks on these territories are "attacks on Russia," and Russia per its standing policy can and will use nuclear weapons if necessary to defend Russian territory (with the expectation that in such a game of nuclear blackmail the West will blink and back down, and demand that the Ukrainians back down as well, giving Russia its "win"). This is how I see things playing out starting with Putin's expected big announcement on May 9 where he will say that the nazi Ukrainians and the West/NATO have launched an unjustified war against Russia, where Russia is the victim, and Russia needs to now come together as a country (so mass mobilization) to defend itself against this attack from the West (like how it had to defend itself against an attack from the West by nazis 80 years ago).

Yes indeed. Johnson's declaration that the UK considers it acceptable for Ukraine to strike inside Russia is a huge deal. I am hopeful Biden will be making a similar declarion soon. Even after Russia annexes Ukrainian territory and declares that Ukraine and the West must accept this "new geopolitical reality" (Lavrov's recent words), Ukraine has the right to continue to fight, and we in the West should continue to help them. And in that fight, Ukraine will have to strike inside Russia, because Russia's strategy is going to be to set up artillery and rocket launchers inside the Russian side of the border from where they fire at Ukrainian forces attempting to take back Russian controlled territory while insisting the Ukrainians cannot target those Russian weapons inside the Russian side of the border (and threatening nuclear escalation if such attacks happen).

Well Biden has sent to Congress a request for $33 billion for Ukraine. I doubt budget hawks in Congress will go for it, but Ukraine will, over time, get quite a lot of US aid. This is because in the US now there is consensus across the two parties (not seen since the early '80s) that this war offers a great opportunity to take down Russia as a geopolitical "problem" for the US in anticipation of the coming long-term geopolitical struggle against China.

Yup. A US defense official said this same thing today, that Russia's goals now are to annex Donetsk and Luhansk outright, and create a puppet statelet called "New Russia" in Kherson. And May 9 may be when all of this gets publicly announced. Then, once those territories are annexed, Russia plans to officially declare war on Ukraine by claiming it is Ukraine that is occupying and threatening Russian territory.

Yes true, but what's different is that now increasingly the Ukrainian side also has long-range strike assets to hit back at the Russians. And if Putin's goal is to take the Donbas and southern Ukraine, they're the ones who will need to put boots on the ground in those areas.

Nothing personal against you or any other Swede here but as an American I also don't want Sweden in NATO. Finland yes, Sweden no. I feel Sweden will be a pain in the ass within NATO much like France and Turkey, and furthermore I continue to take very strong offence at past anti-US Swedish actions. Just my personal feelings.

Finland and Sweden exploring jointly applying for fast-track NATO membership: https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2022/05/01/finland-and-sweden-intensify-talks-on-joint-nato-application/

Article on stuff happening on the Russian side of the border with Ukraine: https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-shadow-war-russian-border-attacks/31827632.html US and allied lethal aid to Ukraine and impact on the battlefield: https://breakingdefense.com/2022/05/as-battle-for-ukraine-enters-a-new-phase-so-does-lethal-us-aid/ https://www.stripes.com/theaters/europe/2022-04-30/western-artillery-surging-into-ukraine-will-reshape-war-with-russia,-analysts-say-5850651.html

Yes, correct. Some of these "leaders" have been willing to accept becomming Kadyrov-style puppets. But some of them have refused, and those individuals are being purged, at best, and in some cases being disappeared. What delicious comeuppance for them, eh?

Well it also goes to this notion that only the West cares about Russia's actions in Ukraine. That's just blatantly and demonstrably false. Furthermore, even in those small number of non-Western states that have taken a "soft" approach to their reactions, it is only the governments of those states and not the people. In India for example, as that one article I linked showed, the press and public opinion are very strongly for Ukraine and against Russia. But the government is reacting cautiously because of some strategic factors. Ditto in Indonesia, Brazil, etc. And the truth about China is that even they are only publicly standing with the Russians while privately expressing very different views to Russia including that they strongly support Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity. No country in the world has an incentive to not be supportive of Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity lest their squishyness on those principles come back to personally haunt them in the future. And the outright comical stuff these Russian government officials, including Putin and Lavrov, keep saying only goes to cement the fact that they themselves know how bad things are for them and how completely isolated they are in the world. That's what explains the crazy stuff they spout. It's shear desperation + bitterness in the untenable global position they find themselves in these days.

This is the same thing I mentioned previously from an article in a different source. Apparently, despite all their previous claims that they had no claims on any Ukrainian territory and only the Crimea because of "special circumstances" from the Soviet era, now the Russians are claiming that all territory in Ukraine that was part of "new Russia" during the 19th century Russian empire belongs to Russia. But the Russians are apparently running into an unforeseen obstacle: the local "Russian" separatist leaders in these areas are angry because what they wanted was independent statelets that they could rule over and exploit as warlords, and not simply to be used as pawns by Russia for Russia to take those lands.

Well just today there was a major article in the Wall Street Journal (unfortunately behind a paywall) quoting several top Russian officials including our favorite Russian jokester, Lavrov, claiming Russia now intends to carry out a broader global war against the US and the West in retailiation for the US and the West aiding Ukraine in their not-war with Russia. Lots of blather from the Russians about how this is all now a plot by the West to keep Russia down blah blah blah.

Haha. I also thought Lia and Katsumoto would end up together. Poor Katsumoto needs some lovin' in his life. But yeah, I think they brought in Lia as a way to finally push Thomas and Higgy together. So she was always envisioned as a guest star for a few episodes. And I think Thomas and Higgy will get it on only if this season is it for the show. If the show is given another season, they'll drag things out into next season.

LOL. Yeah been waiting for that for four seasons. But tbh, I really liked the new love interest for Thomas they brought in at the beginning of this season: Lia (Chantal Thuy). Prettier than Higgy for me.

Hey that's been my line for years!

The current show or the old one? If the current one, it's my favorite network drama too. And nothing guilty about it. It's the only hour-long show on the networks I now watch, and I love it!!

So very interesting. I grew up on stories from my grandma and others of that generation about the other half of WW2. My grand-aunts were in Singapore when it fell to the Japanese, and got to experience first-hand the brutality and horror of life under Japanese occupation. My grandparents, with my mom as a toddler, were on the last ship out of Rangoon, Burma, and watched the horror of Japanese aircraft bombing the departing passenger ships and people in the water getting eaten by sharks.

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/son-flies-last-f15-out-of-europe-father-flew-in-first Great personal story as the last US F-15C's leave Europe. Now one less squadron of F-15C's, my all-time favorite and most-loved fighter jet.

In another finding that was presented to the UNHRC, and corroborated by ICC and EU war crimes investigators, people in occupied parts of Ukraine have been sent notes demanding that x amount of money in cash be dropped off at some location by a certain time or else they will receive a video showing the execution of their family member.

Yeah. Particularly heartbreaking was reading through the descrptions of how Russian troops were given explict permission, and even encouragement, to commit rape, and this included girls of very young ages who were gang-raped and then killed and their bodies burned to try and cover up the evidence.

Documentation of systematic warcrimes by Russia at the UN yesterday. The details are pretty horrific, and the evidence clearly shows these acts were not idiosyncratic but rather the result of Russian soldiers having been instructed to engage in them. https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2022/04/28/Ukrainians-executed-Russian-war-crimes/7051651120048/ https://www.businessinsider.com/evidence-russia-executing-ukrainians-trying-to-surrender-us-official-2022-4

Yeah, second quarter of 2023 at the earliest, though I'm guessing even later than that.

They were based in and operating out of Moscow through the first week of the war. Only after Putin began to enact decrees crushing independent news reporting in Russia did they move their operations to Amsterdam, an eminently sensible and reasonable thing to do.

And then there's this as well, something that I predicted will end up being Putin's endgame here: seize as much territory as he can from Ukraine, and then try to force a ceasefire and a deal on Ukraine that makes his land-grab permanent. https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/04/25/putin-drops-peace-talks-in-favor-of-ukraine-land-grab-ft-a77475 Also rather amazing that The Moscow Times has been able to get away with publishing things like this in recent days. They also published a casualties figure for the Russian military a few days ago admitting something along the lines of 20k dead/missing.

Well the Russians themselves said something a couple of weeks ago about doing to Moldova (and possibly also Georgia) what they're doing to Ukraine, and I mentioned it here. And then a Russian general made similar claims recently, as the "next phase" of the war after they take the Donbas: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61188943 https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/22/world/skepticism-greets-a-bold-russian-claim-about-war-aims-based-on-its-source.html