Is Russia about to invade Ukraine? (1 Viewer)

[superchuck500]

Russia continues to mass assets within range of Ukraine - though the official explanations are that they are for various exercises. United States intelligence has noted that Russian operatives in Ukraine could launch 'false flag' operations as a predicate to invasion. The West has pressed for negotiations and on Friday in Geneva, the US Sec. State Blinken will meet with the Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov.

Certainly the Russian movements evidence some plan - but what is it? Some analysts believe that Putin's grand scheme involves securing Western commitments that NATO would never expand beyond its current composition. Whether that means action in Ukraine or merely the movement of pieces on the chess board remains to be seen.

VIENNA — No one expected much progress from this past week’s diplomatic marathon to defuse the security crisis Russia has ignited in Eastern Europe by surrounding Ukraine on three sides with 100,000 troops and then, by the White House’s accounting, sending in saboteurs to create a pretext for invasion.

But as the Biden administration and NATO conduct tabletop simulations about how the next few months could unfold, they are increasingly wary of another set of options for President Vladimir V. Putin, steps that are more far-reaching than simply rolling his troops and armor over Ukraine’s border.

Mr. Putin wants to extend Russia’s sphere of influence to Eastern Europe and secure written commitments that NATO will never again enlarge. If he is frustrated in reaching that goal, some of his aides suggested on the sidelines of the negotiations last week, then he would pursue Russia’s security interests with results that would be felt acutely in Europe and the United States.

There were hints, never quite spelled out, that nuclear weapons could be shifted to places — perhaps not far from the United States coastline — that would reduce warning times after a launch to as little as five minutes, potentially igniting a confrontation with echoes of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

Russia Issues Subtle Threats More Far-Reaching Than a Ukraine Invasion

If the West fails to meet its security demands, Moscow could take measures like placing nuclear missiles close to the U.S. coastline, Russian officials have hinted.

www.nytimes.com

Blinken Will Meet With Russia as U.S. Pushes for More Diplomacy

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken will meet with Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov of Russia in Geneva on Friday as the United States warns that Russia could soon attack Ukraine.

www.nytimes.com

How to think about war in Ukraine

Start with the Ukrainians

snyder.substack.com

 

[Lapaz]

@SaintForLife so much for appeasing Russia.

NATO’s boss wants to free Ukraine to strike hard inside Russia

Jens Stoltenberg says the rules on using Western weapons should be eased

www.economist.com

I think it’s necessary to allow Ukraine to attack inside Russia with US weapons, because Russia is firing into Ukraine from their territory. The UK has already lifted the restriction. The restriction should be to attack weapons that are launching attacks on Urkaine territory.

 

[DaveXA]

I think it’s necessary to allow Ukraine to attack inside Russia with US weapons, because Russia is firing into Ukraine from their territory. The UK has already lifted the restriction. The restriction should be to attack weapons that are launching attacks on Urkaine territory.

The restriction should be civilian targets. Ukraine needs to be able to hit infrastructure and supply chain targets that supports their war effort.

 

[CoolBrees]

There should be no restrictions other than those from the Geneva Convention. Civilians, Hosptials, food sources etc.

 

[DaveXA]

There should be no restrictions other than those from the Geneva Convention. Civilians, Hosptials, food sources etc.

Exactly.

 

[brandon]

Guys, I think it's probably time to update the thread title.

Yes, Russia is going to invade Ukraine.

 

[efil4]

There should be no restrictions other than those from the Geneva Convention. Civilians, Hosptials, food sources etc.

The problem is Russia refuses to abide by same conventions.

Today was a particularly bad day in Kharkiv. A giant market was struck with 2 glide bombs. On a Saturday afternoon. They just don't stop because the Russian way is to inflict as much civilian pain to break the will of the enemy. They want to force military capitulation thru the inhabitants who simply want the bombing and killing to stop.

That's their military philosophy for the last 100 years.

Ukrainians live in fear every day. Meanwhile residents of Russian metro cities live as if they are untouchable.

How do you combat an adversary that simply doesn't play by any rules?

 

[CoolBrees]

The problem is Russia refuses to abide by same conventions.

Today was a particularly bad day in Kharkiv. A giant market was struck with 2 glide bombs. On a Saturday afternoon. They just don't stop because the Russian way is to inflict as much civilian pain to break the will of the enemy. They want to force military capitulation thru the inhabitants who simply want the bombing and killing to stop.

That's their military philosophy for the last 100 years.

Ukrainians live in fear every day. Meanwhile residents of Russian metro cities live as if they are untouchable.

How do you combat an adversary that simply doesn't play by any rules?

Threefold-

By providing them sufficient amount of air defense systems (read Patriot) necessary to defend their civilian areas as well as their military installations. Including enough rocket batteries for the duration of this war and beyond.

By providing them the tactical weaponry to reach deep inside Russian territory for the destruction of their military apparatus.

By standing with eastern NATO nations and begin defensive operations against any attacks to western Ukraine and their capital.

 

[DaveXA]

Threefold-

By providing them sufficient amount of air defense systems (read Patriot) necessary to defend their civilian areas as well as their military installations. Including enough rocket batteries for the duration of this war and beyond.

By providing them the tactical weaponry to reach deep inside Russian territory for the destruction of their military apparatus.

By standing with eastern NATO nations and begin defensive operations against any attacks to western Ukraine and their capital.

I don't think there are enough Patriot batteries to cover every major Ukrainian city. They have to make choices on where they send the ones they do have. Russia will continue shooting where defenses are minimal.

Agreed with point 2.

I'm not sure on point 3. You'd have to get broader NATO on board, which unless you boot Orban, he's gonna veto that. If Belarus wises up and punts him, maybe that calculus could change, but I don't see it happening because, as I understand it, he's got pretty firm control of their military.

 

[MT15]

At this point I would be okay with NATO kicking Hungary out. Would be a warning to others who want to play footsie with Putin.

 

[DaveXA]

At this point I would be okay with NATO kicking Hungary out. Would be a warning to others who want to play footsie with Putin.

I believe the problem is there's no real mechanism for kicking them out. What they are able to do iirc is exclude them from votes, but I think there are limitations to that as well. If there were an easy way to get rid of them, pretty sure they would have done that already.

 

[efil4]

Threefold-

By providing them sufficient amount of air defense systems (read Patriot) necessary to defend their civilian areas as well as their military installations. Including enough rocket batteries for the duration of this war and beyond.

By providing them the tactical weaponry to reach deep inside Russian territory for the destruction of their military apparatus.

By standing with eastern NATO nations and begin defensive operations against any attacks to western Ukraine and their capital.

We have no current AD to intercept glide bombs. They are too small to track efficiently and using a Patriot to intercept a 500lb dumb bomb makes little sense when you have to guard agaisntbl cruise, ballistic threat .

so the next thought is targeting the planes that drop the glide bombs. They have a 70km range, so they would need to install Patriot (160 km range ) batteries within 20 Km outsite of Kharkiv which would make them prime kinzhal/zircon cruise missile targets. And losing one Patriot battery would be a propaganda coup for Russia.

Very difficult to protect Patriot battery from shahed/cruise missile volley of 20 or 30 at a time.

I do agree they need max number of patriots, but it's not a mobile platform. See what one cluster ATACMs did to an S400 battery? They have Iskanders that do same. Just one will do the trick.

It's a tought spot and meanwhile that city continues to be bombarded...both public places and infrastructure. No military significance whatsoever.

I also would love to see a full week of UAF non stop bombing of Belgorod (border region where RuAF continue to stage for interdiction across border) and if towns get wiped out, so be it. Let the Russian population feel the same fear Ukrainians fear and put pressure on Putin.

At some point, as crass as this will sound, we have to come to terms with the fact this is a war. War is brutal and while you want to protect against collateral damage, it's impossible to wage war and not have collateral damage. We've tried this "precision" war and it hasn't worked out. From Vietnam to Afghanistan and Iraq in between.

I just think that outside of going "all in", this carnage will continue. There is a finite number of ATACMS and I suspect they use sparingly.

Maybe with F16s flying and AMRAAM might help, but they can only fire within radar range which is only 50 or 60km. (And UAF doesn't have any E 3s to aid in targeting and tracking.

Idk. It's just quite frustrating to see a country try to defend itself with all sorts of restrictions placed on them.

 

[DaveXA]

We have no current AD to intercept glide bombs. They are too small to track efficiently and using a Patriot to intercept a 500lb dumb bomb makes little sense when you have to guard agaisntbl cruise, ballistic threat .

so the next thought is targeting the planes that drop the glide bombs. They have a 70km range, so they would need to install Patriot (160 km range ) batteries within 20 Km outsite of Kharkiv which would make them prime kinzhal/zircon cruise missile targets. And losing one Patriot battery would be a propaganda coup for Russia.

Very difficult to protect Patriot battery from shahed/cruise missile volley of 20 or 30 at a time.

I do agree they need max number of patriots, but it's not a mobile platform. See what one cluster ATACMs did to an S400 battery? They have Iskanders that do same. Just one will do the trick.

It's a tought spot and meanwhile that city continues to be bombarded...both public places and infrastructure. No military significance whatsoever.

I also would love to see a full week of UAF non stop bombing of Belgorod (border region where RuAF continue to stage for interdiction across border) and if towns get wiped out, so be it. Let the Russian population feel the same fear Ukrainians fear and put pressure on Putin.

At some point, as crass as this will sound, we have to come to terms with the fact this is a war. War is brutal and while you want to protect against collateral damage, it's impossible to wage war and not have collateral damage. We've tried this "precision" war and it hasn't worked out. From Vietnam to Afghanistan and Iraq in between.

I just think that outside of going "all in", this carnage will continue. There is a finite number of ATACMS and I suspect they use sparingly.

Maybe with F16s flying and AMRAAM might help, but they can only fire within radar range which is only 50 or 60km. (And UAF doesn't have any E 3s to aid in targeting and tracking.

Idk. It's just quite frustrating to see a country try to defend itself with all sorts of restrictions placed on them.

Right, you should wage war to win or don't bother. It's for their survival, but to survive, they need to win. What that looks like is decisively removing the threat from within their borders and degrading their capabilities such that its cost prohibitive to continue.

There's really only two options here, win or be conquered. It's basically Putin's objective. They want nothing short of total capitulation by Ukraine, and I don't see Ukraine surrendering anytime soon.

Fighting the Russians under the restrictions they have is basically not allowing them to win. The handcuffs need to come off and full support for them from NATO needs to continue to the degree possible. While not a member of NATO, they are an ally and should be treated as such.

 

[SaintForLife]

Dave already mentioned this but this is crucial to why you are so easily swayed by propaganda. It’s not important to understand who you are listening to and what their possible agenda might be? This is exactly why you have ended up with egg on your face multiple times on this board.

You are one to talk about being swayed by propaganda. You still believe on Russiagate lol.

I get that someome admitting they were wrong on a message board doesn't happen too often, but at least I've admitted I was wrong here multiple times.

You on the other had has never admitted you were wrong at least from what I've seen in our discussion.

For example, today I posted about Special Counsel Weiss saying the Hunter Biden laptop is real and that Hunter's legal team hasn't shown that it has been manipulated.

Will you admit you were wrong on that? No way in hell.

For all we know this account is a straight up Russian propaganda account. The red flags are everywhere in that timeline.

BlueAnon

Look everyone has some confirmation bias. Everyone. It’s easy to believe someone uncritically if they are saying something you agree with. But you need to also employ some critical thinking. And the more extreme the opinions offered the more you need to pump the brakes on listening without some skepticism. If you quit thinking critically, and don’t vet your sources, you will be sucked into swirling propaganda and that seems to be what has happened to you.

You need to be able to discern between nonsense - like this Sirius account - and actual news sources that do use multiple sources, that have accountability built into their organizations, that have editorial oversight. Do these practices make them infallible? Of course not. But if a mistake is made they do retractions, and follow up reports.

Come back to reality, SFL. You can do it.

You love your corporate media. Is this the media that you are saying I should listen more to?

The press versus the president, part one

<p>INTRODUCTION: ‘I realized early on I had two jobs’ The end of the long inquiry into whether Donald Trump was colluding with Russia came in July 2019, when Robert Mueller III, the special counsel, took seven, sometimes painful, hours to essentially say no. “Holy shirt, Bob Mueller is not going...

www.cjr.org

I’ve Been at NPR for 25 Years. Here’s How We Lost America’s Trust.

Uri Berliner, a veteran at the public radio institution, says the network lost its way when it started telling listeners how to think.

www.thefp.com

 

[MT15]

You still believe on Russiagate

This is a made up term you use to attempt to smear other people who have a nuanced understanding of what Russia and Trump did during both of his campaigns. Nobody but people in the actual MAGA cult use this term. It’s vague to the point of being meaningless and it has been discussed on here ad nauseum. You’re beating a dead horse.

 

[MT15]

You on the other had has never admitted you were wrong at least from what I've seen in our discussion.

Then you just don’t remember. I’ve admitted it when I was wrong in the past.

 

[MT15]

For example, today I posted about Special Counsel Weiss saying the Hunter Biden laptop is real and that Hunter's legal team hasn't shown that it has been manipulated.

You are conflating 2 different things here, and you have been doing it consistently to the point where I have to assume it’s intentional. Supposedly there is a laptop that the FBI has, but we don’t really know much about that, because I don’t think any official statements have been made. Then there is the highly compromised and manipulated group of files that were published by the NY Post. That piece of propaganda is what is manipulated and everyone knows it, it’s established fact.

I haven’t even read your post today yet. I have never made any definite statements about whatever might be in FBI custody, because we don’t really know anything about it.

 

[MT15]

Is this the media that you are saying I should listen more to?

Sigh, the OPINION piece by Berliner was discussed extensively. It has many claims that cannot be substantiated and reads like a disgruntled employee settling scores.

You should learn to distinguish between opinion or analysis articles and factual reporting.

 

[MT15]

I've admitted I was wrong here multiple times.

Well, I remember maybe 2 times. One for sure. Which is fine, but you are wrong a whole lot more often than you ever admit. You seem to give instant credence to any person who says what you want to believe, and deny credence automatically to anyone who says something you don’t want to hear. Which is a common mistake that everyone can make, if they don’t guard against it.

You post the actual worst sources on here, and more often double down on them then do any more reading or critical thinking. Plus there have been times you just flat refuse to divulge your sources.

Or you adamantly insist that someone has to divulge an expunged arrest when that is clearly false, and multiple people tell you so. And you refuse to acknowledge that obtaining the information about an expunged arrest and making it public is clearly unethical and possibly illegal.