War in Ukraine

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I found this episode of Andrew Sullivan Dishcast podcast with Anne Applebaum enlightening. She frequently writes in the Atlantic, she is American but has lived in Poland for decades and has studied Soviet and Russian issues for years. She is generally unsympathetic to what she believes is a narrative created by Putin that they have legitimate beefs with US and Europe regarding NATO and that they feel threatened. Her contention is that this position is relatively new, last 10-15 years. Before that most Russians didn’t care. The entry into NATO by these former states was not the US pushing them into it, but their legitimate fear of the Russians interfering in their countries and that was already happening.

The view seems credible to me. Russia is interfering in Europe, and even in US elections. The notion that if we just give them Ukraine and move some troops back that all will be OK is ridiculous. Putin is a Soviet nostalgist, and he is going to want to expand no matter what.

The only way we prevent it is if he believes we will make their life a living hell by arming Ukrainians and severe sanctions.

 

Probably something he heard on Fox News, Newsmax or OAN.

 

Then there's the Brazilian version of Trump.
Brazil’s Bolsonaro embraced the U.S. under Trump. Now he’s in ‘solidarity’ with Russia.

 

Right wing authoritarians stick together.

 

Hey! That is from Great Britain! This is about Biden and Putin!

 

I laughed at the opening tweet of this thread. Peel away all the noise and the false flag is kinda silly:

 

This blows. Donetsk being evacuated. Tanks rolling in soon?

Puck you Futin.

 

I kind of still feel like this is all a big bluff.

 

Isnt that area already a warzone? Shakhtar Donetsk have been playing in Lviv or Kiev for a few years now.

 

I normally do, too. This one is just giving me the willies. Feels different.

I think it's the pro Russian sentiment in this country. Moscow understands this.

I don't really know, but this one worries me. Maybe I'm just getting old and worry more.

 

Yes, but trying to evacuating cities is new. 2m in metro area.... This isn't a small village

 

Putin performed the same evacuations in N Georgia before beginning a campaign of shelling that Georgian military leaders felt they needed to reply. That was the pretext for that invasion. Russia's built up the military strength and logistics to invade Ukraine for more than two "breakaway republics." He sees weakness in NATO and a nearly crippling addiction to Russian hydrocarbons. I feel like he's betting on NATO being split by how far nations are willing to hurt, re: energy. I fear it's an intelligent gambit.

ALSO: The "terror attack" was just flashed on TV. A car exploded in front of or near separatist leadership in Donetsk. RT was, of course, the first on the scene. Wait for the "Ukranian massacre" of civilians on one of the evacuating busses as the final domino. No, it won't convince Western (or NATO-affiliated) media, but they're not the intended audiance. Russia is playing to convince their own population of the righteousness of invasion. They also have to stoke hatred in E Ukraine like they pulled off in 2014 to succeed in their invasion.

God help us all if Putin does what we all know he will.

Edit: Credit needs to be given to Ukrainian civilian and military leadership to showing significant restraint to Russian provocations like... shell a *$*$(#) school.

 

I don't. Tucker Carlson's hero Putin is not going to back down.

 

Although I wouldn't rule out the possibility, I still do not see a full scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. If the so called experts are unable to predict what Putin will do obviously it's beyond my knowledge but my guess is, at least for now, is that Putin's objective may be to open a Russian controlled land corridor between the Donbas and Crimea, the former of which is already effectively under Russian control while the latter was occupied by and has been formally made part of Russia.

 

I agree he won't back down. But, what if Putin was beating the war drums to achieve some other goal.

 

I don't think he will invade. Why do a slow military buildup while the entire world is watching? That just allows them to prepare their defense

 

Authoritarians of all ilks stick together.

 

Up from 100k to about 190k today….raises the stakes

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/18/mor...appshare|com.google.chrome.ios.ShareExtension

 

The troops are a decoy. Look for a bunch of cyber attacks and for the western country alliances to become estranged