Ukraine Conflict

[Mamoulian War]

18 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Which would be even more insane than invading Ukraine as that's war with the US - gambling that NATO will fear nuclear war to the point the alliance fails in its primary purpose seems to have poor odds. 

https://news.err.ee/1608815692/edf-intelligence-chief-russia-still-has-long-term-offensive-capabilities

""We estimate that Russia had about 17 million rounds of ammunition before the war started, 10 million of which have been used up," he said. "At the end of the summer, their ammunition usage was very high - there were days when between 20,000 and 60,000 [artillery] rounds were being fired, which is a huge amount."

This guy is always pessimistic, but that was interesting to note

As in case of Ukraine, Putin would just probably count, that the West would collectively piss on Baltics with Article 5, as much as he did piss on Armenia with CSTO defense pact

Putin definitely has miscalculated the western response to his attack on Ukraine. And now he just reaps, what he has sewn If Ukraine would fall in the first week, how he has calculated, I would bet my underwear, that Baltics would be attacked in the next decade.

[Malcador]

2 minutes ago, Mamoulian War said:

As in case of Ukraine, Putin would just probably count, that the West would collectively piss on Baltics with Article 5, as much as he did piss on Armenia with CSTO defense pact

Putin definitely has miscalculated the western response to his attack on Ukraine. And now he just reaps, what he has sewn If Ukraine would fall in the first week, how he has calculated, I would bet my underwear, that Baltics would be attacked in the next decade.

Bit much to extrapolate from how a non-member is treated to determine how a member would, though. Especially as NATO forces would get more funding and attention if Ukraine did capitulate in weeks than it does now. 

[Sarex]

12 minutes ago, Mamoulian War said:

Well, says the person, who did cheat on Ukraine in the first place when in 2014, he shat all over the Budapest treaty, where Russia agreed to be a guarantor of Ukrainian territorial integrity

Even if one was to take your statement at face value and ignore other broken treaties, shouldn't the west be better or is that the standard they measure up to?

[xzar_monty]

7 minutes ago, Sarex said:

Even if one was to take your statement at face value and ignore other broken treaties, shouldn't the west be better or is that the standard they measure up to?

The bottom line remains that Russia has both annexed Crimea and then later on attacked the whole of Ukraine with the intention of destroying the whole country.

It doesn't matter how many broken treaties there are in the past: such attacks on sovereign countries are not justifiable. Russia's position where it demands various things from other countries is inherently untenable and unjustifiable; it simply has no power or right to demand any such things. Russia is the aggressor here, no matter how much it poses as a victim. No country or entity has or has had any intention to attack Russia, this is clear as day.

The West has little moral superiority here, in that I agree with you. But that doesn't justify an attack, much less one where the intent is genocide.

[Chilloutman]

52 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Which would be even more insane than invading Ukraine as that's war with the US - gambling that NATO will fear nuclear war to the point the alliance fails in its primary purpose seems to have poor odds. 

https://news.err.ee/1608815692/edf-intelligence-chief-russia-still-has-long-term-offensive-capabilities

""We estimate that Russia had about 17 million rounds of ammunition before the war started, 10 million of which have been used up," he said. "At the end of the summer, their ammunition usage was very high - there were days when between 20,000 and 60,000 [artillery] rounds were being fired, which is a huge amount."

This guy is always pessimistic, but that was interesting to note

It was your statement that its just marketing, not mine, do I miss something in this conversation?

[Malcador]

7 minutes ago, Chilloutman said:

It was your statement that its just marketing, not mine, do I miss something in this conversation?

Well, was just pointing out why it's not likely, so am surprised it works on people.

[Chilloutman]

6 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Well, was just pointing out why it's not likely, so am surprised it works on people.

thats the point you also stated, attacking Ukraine was viewed as not likely either 

[Malcador]

1 minute ago, Chilloutman said:

thats the point you also stated, attacking Ukraine was viewed as not likely either 

Invading the Baltics is vastly less likely to occur though. Especially as Ukraine is the preceding event.  Would be sort of an amusing hypothetical though, NATO just falling apart as a good chunk of its members are invaded with no proper response.

[Chilloutman]

1 minute ago, Malcador said:

Invading the Baltics is vastly less likely to occur though. Especially as Ukraine is the preceding event.  Would be sort of an amusing hypothetical though, NATO just falling apart as a good chunk of its members are invaded with no proper response.

Georgia, Moldava - there were preceding events too, don't you think?

[Malcador]

2 minutes ago, Chilloutman said:

Georgia, Moldava - there were preceding events too, don't you think?

Neither are in NATO, though. NATO has to defend its members, everything else is optional, right ?

[Chilloutman]

3 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Neither are in NATO, though. NATO has to defend its members, everything else is optional, right ?

sure, I mean its preceding ambush on Ukraine which was view as unlikely (and is not NATO state). At this point I am not sure if there is anyone left in Kremlin who thinks rationally

[xzar_monty]

5 minutes ago, Chilloutman said:

At this point I am not sure if there is anyone left in Kremlin who thinks rationally

I am going to guess no.

When the Finnish president last visited Putin, he pointed out how terribly alone Putin seemed to be in the vast halls and corridors of the Kremlin. With the COVID and given Putin's temperament, I am guessing that the Kremlin has been very thoroughly purged of all people who think rationally. I think most of the lapdogs have been banished as well; there are only a select few left.

[Malcador]

14 minutes ago, Chilloutman said:

sure, I mean its preceding ambush on Ukraine which was view as unlikely (and is not NATO state). At this point I am not sure if there is anyone left in Kremlin who thinks rationally

Well, we've not seen nukes fly yet, so at least one barrier they are respecting.  I don't really think all the Russian leadership are insane, though. 

[Mamoulian War]

1 hour ago, Sarex said:

Even if one was to take your statement at face value and ignore other broken treaties, shouldn't the west be better or is that the standard they measure up to?

Yes, they should. That does not mean that West being ****, does justify Russia being bigger ****

[pmp10]

59 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Bit much to extrapolate from how a non-member is treated to determine how a member would, though. Especially as NATO forces would get more funding and attention if Ukraine did capitulate in weeks than it does now. 

Not really, in NATO there are members not under any serious threat and then there is the eastern Europe.

If NATO is afraid of breaking a fingernail over Kiev then it will not be willing to bleed over Tallinn.
Just over the last few months in Poland, people who would blindly trust in article 5 are now calling for panic-rearming and dreading future US pivot to Asia. 
And that's even before we even consider what European 'guarantees' for Russia could look like, because chances are they will demand some form of NATO roll-back.

[Mamoulian War]

4 minutes ago, Malcador said:

Well, we've not seen nukes fly yet, so at least one barrier they are respecting.  I don't really think all the Russian leadership are insane, though. 

The reason for this, is that China has stated very loudly, that any state using Nuclear weapons for attacking, would face dire consequences. After this statement by Xi, The Kremlin did 180 with the daily usage of nuclear threats.

[Malcador]

48 minutes ago, pmp10 said:

Not really, in NATO there are members not under any serious threat and then there is the eastern Europe.

If NATO is afraid of breaking a fingernail over Kiev then it will not be willing to bleed over Tallinn.
Just over the last few months in Poland, people who would blindly trust in article 5 are now calling for panic-rearming and dreading future US pivot to Asia. 
And that's even before we even consider what European 'guarantees' for Russia could look like, because chances are they will demand some form of NATO roll-back.

Failing to do so is going to be the end of NATO though and an immense loss of credibility and prestige for the US.  So against that, they are pushed into a corner more or less, they'll fight Russia and hope it's remains non-nuclear.  In any event, is a moot point as Ukraine's not going to fall here.

If there's going to be any guarantee or anything, would just be solely tied to Ukraine no ? Ukraine not being in NAT0 for a while isn't that great a loss to the alliance, regardless of their forces being elite from top to bottom.

 

Edited December 13, 2022 by Malcador

[xzar_monty]

40 minutes ago, Mamoulian War said:

The reason for this, is that China has stated very loudly, that any state using Nuclear weapons for attacking, would face dire consequences. After this statement by Xi, The Kremlin did 180 with the daily usage of nuclear threats.

Putin has even very recently pointed out that "we are not crazy, we do know what nuclear weapons mean", or something along those lines. The 180 is indeed remarkable.

This, by the way, is classic Russian stuff. In 1923, a process of "Ukrainization" started in the Soviet Union: Lenin wanted to spread the revolution into other countries as well, and the communist Ukraine was to serve as an example. The bolsheviks reasoned that the urbanization of Ukraine required creating a more hospitable environment for those coming from the rural areas, which meant that cities were forced to use Ukrainian instead of Russian in all official communication. Well, this honeymoon of sorts ended before the decade did, after which the "bourgeous nationalism" of Ukraine was instantly regarded as a threat to Soviet unity, as if the previous period had never even existed. Thriving Ukrainian presses were shut down and their staff purged. These jumps from black to white, one policy to its opposite, are classic Russia -- and of course quite likely to create uncertainty, fear, paranoia, you name it.

Edited December 13, 2022 by xzar_monty

[Malcador]

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/12/13/politics/us-patriot-missile-defense-system-ukraine/index.html

Related to Iranian missiles I am guessing.

[pmp10]

1 hour ago, Malcador said:

If there's going to be any guarantee or anything, would just be solely tied to Ukraine no ? Ukraine not being in NAT0 for a while isn't that great a loss to the alliance, regardless of their forces being elite from top to bottom.

When you hear Macron or Scholtz speak on 'new security arrangements' I get the impression they are hinting something more.
Ukraine has no reason to trust another version of Minsk accords, moreover (if the diplomatic leaks are trustworthy) no country would agree to guarantee their security during the talks in April.
On the Russian side the demands were to push-back NATO to 1997 status and now claiming parts of Ukraine they don't even control.

I have no idea how they want to square this particular circle but maybe the idea is just to start talking. 

[Zoraptor]

3 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

Well, says the person, who did cheat on Ukraine in the first place when in 2014, he shat all over the Budapest treaty, where Russia agreed to be a guarantor of Ukrainian territorial integrity

1) Not a treaty

2) Everyone broke it. Indeed, the US and UK are still breaking the Belarussian version of the Budapest Memorandum- which prohibits economic coercion.

2 hours ago, Chilloutman said:

Georgia, Moldava - there were preceding events too, don't you think?

Georgia at least is a pretty poor example though. Ethnically cleansing Ossetians and Abkhaz in the early 90s- per HRW- and actually started the 2008 war by attacking Russian peacekeepers- per OSCE.

[Mamoulian War]

Just tell me, if you sign some agreement with someone, and this someone pisses over your agreement and laughs into your face, would you still be heeding to your part of agreement, like nothing ever happened?

[Zoraptor]

That argument only works if one side actually kept to the agreement. If both sides ignored it you can't play the holier than thou card, because everyone's in the dirt.

Nobody paid attention to the Budapest Memorandum, nobody paid attention to Minsk. If they had we wouldn't be where we are now, but that applies to everyone. Even if it was only one side in those cases there's a mutual history of breaking/ ignoring other treaties and agreements that fostered massive distrust. And not just on one side.

[Gorth]

5 hours ago, Mamoulian War said:

Just tell me, if you sign some agreement with someone, and this someone pisses over your agreement and laughs into your face, would you still be heeding to your part of agreement, like nothing ever happened?

That's what happened in Crimea and the reason they decided they would rather be a part of Russia instead of Ukraine

(keep in mind that even though Zelensky is a "modern" and progressive Ukrainian leader that it's hard not to sympathize with, his predecessors weren't all like that)

[Zoraptor]

Zelensky has banned opposition parties and proposed banning the Ukrainian Orthodox Church as well as bringing in penalties for speaking Russian (ah yes, I remember well when persecution of Russian speakers was 'Fake News' and would never happen, after Maidan...). He's not even relatively progressive.

You can get away with an awful lot when you're western backed and the media won't report on anything negative.