[Discussion] Ukraine - Russian Invasion and Discussion

A place for aggregated discussions of a possible conflict, it’s implications and effects, news updates and personal accounts if any. If the expected conflict kicks off, I will change the title but the function will stay the same.

I suspect it's less GRU or similar agents, but more likely RT articles and personal connections with Russian sympathetic dignitaries, which would not be suspicious on the face of it. I don't think a Congressperson is leaving encrypted USB sticks in soda cans in the bushes by the Lincoln Memorial.

And quite likely it's following the lead of social media sources that are fed by GRU troll farms, too. But that's also millions on Facebook. Hiding in plain sight.

Robear wrote:

I suspect it's less GRU or similar agents, but more likely RT articles and personal connections with Russian sympathetic dignitaries, which would not be suspicious on the face of it. I don't think a Congressperson is leaving encrypted USB sticks in soda cans in the bushes by the Lincoln Memorial.

And quite likely it's following the lead of social media sources that are fed by GRU troll farms, too. But that's also millions on Facebook. Hiding in plain sight.

It's troll farms all the way down.

Biden cancelled travel plans. Somebody start watching pizza orders in DC.

The American Rivet Joint started patrolling Ukraine a few hours ago. In what is I'm sure a coincidence, CNN has had 3 independent sources tell it that the Russian orders to attack have been issued and units are moving into their jump-off points and finalizing plans.

(Rivet Joint is a flying ELINT aircraft that can hoover up all sorts of electronic information and analyze it and send it out in near real time. The American ones (17 in all) are operated by L3 and are immensely valuable platforms.)

Well, sh*t.

(CNN)The US has intelligence indicating orders have been sent to Russian commanders to proceed with an attack on Ukraine, according to two US officials and another source familiar with the US intelligence.

The intelligence regarding the order to tactical commanders and intelligence operatives is one of several indicators the US is watching to assess if Russian preparations have entered their final stages for a potential invasion.

Looking on FlightRadar24, there are no civilian flights heading into Ukraine, Belarus or Moldova right now, other than a handful coming in to land at Kyiv. Yesterday there were quite a few.

Two Global Hawks up now, first that I've seen that in a week of watching Flightradar. Second bird's ID is UAVGH000.

*Edit*
And UAVGH000 has gone dark over the Black Sea.

Probably turned off the transponder.

IMAGE(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FMFXv31WUAAqx3K?format=jpg&name=large)

It's a big If.

Wow. Maybe, just maybe, Putin might have blinked. Reuters is reporting that Biden and Putin have agreed, in principal, to a summit.

Also seeing reporting that Putin is indeed unnerved by the US predicting all of Russia's moves, publicly and in real time. Still a long way to go here, and as someone pointed out the other-day, Japan was enthusiastically negotiating right up to Pearl Harbor, but still...

*Edit* Rat-Boy`hausered. But yay, maybe no war, so all good?

Watch em invade in three hours now.

Badferret wrote:

Also seeing reporting that Putin is indeed unnerved by the US predicting all of Russia's moves, publicly and in real time.

Operation Tony Romo.

Hardly noticed: Russia's long-term strategy (Google-translated from German).

Interesting read that speculates that Ukraine is only step 1 in Putin's attempt to save his legacy.

AUs_TBirD wrote:

Hardly noticed: Russia's long-term strategy (Google-translated from German).

Interesting read that speculates that Ukraine is only step 1 in Putin's attempt to save his legacy.

This seems very plausible to me and I'm pretty convinced that Russia will invade and Putin's goal is permanent occupation and subjugation of Ukraine, not a negotiating tool and not just a quick operation to destabilize the country or grab some more territory.

Will it be a neverending quagmire like Afghanistan? I don't think Putin cares. But he's calculated that the risks are acceptable- That the Ukrainian people don't have the stomach for prolonged resistance that the Afghanis have. That his willingness to employ brutality will yield better results than what the Americans have produced in their recent occupations. That the West may unite for a time, but are too divided and, because of internal politics, are incapable of forming any kind of coherent longterm plan to oppose him. That the West ultimately doesn't care enough about Ukraine and will just accept the new reality and move on after a few years at most. That even the loss of thousands of Russian soldiers in an unpopular war will not sufficiently loosen his grip on power in Russia.

It sickens me to see right wing commentators with significant platforms saying things like we shouldn't be focused on Russia, but instead need to consider military action against Canada and their tyrannical leader Trudeau.

Especially when there's news like this- The U.S. warns that Russia has a 'kill list' of Ukrainians to be detained or killed.

The list is said to include journalists, activists, ethnic and religious minorities, and LGBTQ Ukrainians. Other likely targets include opponents of Russia's strategic goals and dissidents from Russia and Belarus who have taken refuge in Ukraine.

I feel so bad for the people of Ukraine right now. I think a lot of them must be in denial and I don't blame them one bit.

And there we go. I'll change the title now.

Noticed there was an MC-130J flying around Poland near the Ukrainian border. The AFSOC folks are out and about.

AUs_TBirD wrote:

Hardly noticed: Russia's long-term strategy (Google-translated from German).

Interesting read that speculates that Ukraine is only step 1 in Putin's attempt to save his legacy.

Yeah, the last good article I read said bascally, Putin would like to restore NATO's borders to around 1990 or so.

Prederick wrote:
AUs_TBirD wrote:

Hardly noticed: Russia's long-term strategy (Google-translated from German).

Interesting read that speculates that Ukraine is only step 1 in Putin's attempt to save his legacy.

Yeah, the last good article I read said bascally, Putin would like to restore NATO's borders to around 1990 or so.

I would frame it more as "saving his life". With corruption even more rampant after 20 years of reign, with far less freedom than under Jeltsin, this nationalist BS is the only thing he's got going for him. Even with our cynicism towards our elected politicians we cannot fathom sacrificing so many lives on the altar of your own career, but that's what this is basically.

John Mearsheimer has been advocating acceding to Russia's demands and leaving Ukraine out in the wind. His basic premise is that Ukraine presents to Putin a vital strategic interest (i.e.: his political survival) and far less to us. He also thinks that we should be trying to make strange bedfellows with the nuclear armed mafia state because China is a bigger strategic competitor. Pretty cynical, but he admits that he is a 19th century mind.

I bring this up because another point that he made was that it is pretty clear that Putin has no intention of annexing Ukraine. Instead, he just has an interest in wrecking it and making it an example of what Russia is prepared to do to its neighbors in order to "ensure its own security". And by that last part, the key is that the promotion of Western style democracy is inherently threatening to corrupt oligarchies like the aforementioned nuclear armed mafia state.

In a lot of ways, it mirrors the leadup to the Peloponnesian War. The survival of Sparta and the Peloponnesian League depended on the containment of "demokratia" and the flashpoint was the overthrow of puppet oligarchs in neighboring client city states by popular uprisings they insist were backed by Athens and the Akian League.

dejanzie wrote:
Prederick wrote:
AUs_TBirD wrote:

Hardly noticed: Russia's long-term strategy (Google-translated from German).

Interesting read that speculates that Ukraine is only step 1 in Putin's attempt to save his legacy.

Yeah, the last good article I read said bascally, Putin would like to restore NATO's borders to around 1990 or so.

I would frame it more as "saving his life". With corruption even more rampant after 20 years of reign, with far less freedom than under Jeltsin, this nationalist BS is the only thing he's got going for him. Even with our cynicism towards our elected politicians we cannot fathom sacrificing so many lives on the altar of your own career, but that's what this is basically.

What nobody has explained to me is why this didn't happen four or so years ago when the US had a pro-Russia president and a congress that would largely capitulate to him? It seems that this would be easier on Russia if Trump were the president as opposed to, say, anyone else.

UpToIsomorphism wrote:
dejanzie wrote:
Prederick wrote:
AUs_TBirD wrote:

Hardly noticed: Russia's long-term strategy (Google-translated from German).

Interesting read that speculates that Ukraine is only step 1 in Putin's attempt to save his legacy.

Yeah, the last good article I read said bascally, Putin would like to restore NATO's borders to around 1990 or so.

I would frame it more as "saving his life". With corruption even more rampant after 20 years of reign, with far less freedom than under Jeltsin, this nationalist BS is the only thing he's got going for him. Even with our cynicism towards our elected politicians we cannot fathom sacrificing so many lives on the altar of your own career, but that's what this is basically.

What nobody has explained to me is why this didn't happen four or so years ago when the US had a pro-Russia president and a congress that would largely capitulate to him? It seems that this would be easier on Russia if Trump were the president as opposed to, say, anyone else.

I think the answer to that was that Putin was still trying to figure out if his move into Crimea would work out. There was significant question as to whether or not he would be able to establish client states in Luhansk and Donetsk. He was trying to do so without direct action and the counteroffensive by Ukrainian forces were largely successful until he intervened with "little green men". And the downing of Malaysian Flight 17 killing hundreds gathered the kind of international attention that complicated his math.

He needed to let the political chips settle, establish a puppet government in D and L and create paramilitaries there before he was ready for this particular stage.

UpToIsomorphism wrote:
dejanzie wrote:
Prederick wrote:
AUs_TBirD wrote:

Hardly noticed: Russia's long-term strategy (Google-translated from German).

Interesting read that speculates that Ukraine is only step 1 in Putin's attempt to save his legacy.

Yeah, the last good article I read said bascally, Putin would like to restore NATO's borders to around 1990 or so.

I would frame it more as "saving his life". With corruption even more rampant after 20 years of reign, with far less freedom than under Jeltsin, this nationalist BS is the only thing he's got going for him. Even with our cynicism towards our elected politicians we cannot fathom sacrificing so many lives on the altar of your own career, but that's what this is basically.

What nobody has explained to me is why this didn't happen four or so years ago when the US had a pro-Russia president and a congress that would largely capitulate to him? It seems that this would be easier on Russia if Trump were the president as opposed to, say, anyone else.

I wondered that, too. My first thought was organization and logistics. You can't conquer the world overnight, after all. While Putin, like most tyrants, doesn't appear to care for the welfare of his own troops, he does need to keep enough fodder alive and loyal to continue his advances.

With Trump out of office, logistics now includes spinning propaganda to create pretexts for invasion, and support from international wingnuts like Fox News.

Edit: Paleo-hausered with a better explanation

A pretty good survey on the current situation.

More and more, I'm of the mind that this will be remembered as the beginning of the end of Putin's reign.

With Nord Stream 2 dead, I'd not be surprised if we see a Berlin Airlift type of natural gas importing to Germany by next winter and possibly even a Marshall style acceleration of renewables or even some of those new small scale nuclear plants over the next half decade. It might even be good business for China since they are so strong in renewable manufacturing.

The leader of the GOP praising Putin for invading while claiming he would have stood up to the man who clearly owns his ass...

IMAGE(https://i.ibb.co/jGJ00rK/IMG-20220222-170809.png)

And Blinken has called off the potential for talks with Lavrov. Me thinks the shooting starts soon....

OG_slinger wrote:

The leader of the GOP praising Putin for invading while claiming he would have stood up to the man who clearly owns his ass...

IMAGE(https://i.ibb.co/jGJ00rK/IMG-20220222-170809.png)

Wait... Does Trump actually believe that Russia is moving a "peace force?" into Ukraine? All the other stuff is just the usual dumb-ass word salad and ignorance.

No, he's doing his usual fishing to determine what he can get away with saying and see how far people will let him go.

"I'd have liked to tell tanks to go into [place I don't like]. That sounds like a fun thing that would be useful for my purposes in the future. Y'all be okay with that if it was aimed at Mexico, right? How about GA during election day? Nevada or AZ? How about DC on electoral count day? Will you condemn me for what I just said? No? Cool, I'll keep pushing. Oh, no you did condemn me and my people pushed back and booed me? Cool, cool cool cool. I know where the dividing lines are."

At least r/TankPorn is having a good week.