[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.

Early morning scuttlebutt sounds like this was actually a Ukrainian missile, not a Russian one.

Prederick wrote:

Early morning scuttlebutt sounds like this was actually a Ukrainian missile, not a Russian one.

Unlikely.

Prederick wrote:

Early morning scuttlebutt sounds like this was actually a Ukrainian missile, not a Russian one.

That does seem to be the headlines all over this morning. I wonder if it is true. We are in a situation where it is quite plausible to believe it was Russia but that NATO doesn't want a full scale war so they are blaming Ukraine but then saying "we forgive them them because of war..."

Given the headlines I assume it was an accident no matter who fired it as if it was not I would expect more fire in the headlines. It is probably the cleanest way to deescalate it and say we really need to give Ukraine these new anti missile units to prevent this from happening again.

Paleocon wrote:
Prederick wrote:

Early morning scuttlebutt sounds like this was actually a Ukrainian missile, not a Russian one.

Unlikely.

Sure. Biden, Poland's President, and the rest of NATO are going to push an easily disprovable lie that one of Ukraine's air defense missles malfunctioned while trying to shoot down one of the many missiles Russia fired at them rather than admit the real truth that it was Russia targeting infrastructure near the Polish border because they're suddenly too afraid to get any more involved.
You've cracked the conspiracy.

Watching RUS keep pushing unprepared troops into the firing lines and the casualties just keep climbing in this war is almost a direct line back to what they did during the defense of Moscow in 41-42.

As the Wehrmacht ran out of logistical steam in winter 41, Stalin kept insisting on just throwing troops at the Germans. They could have at least tried to exploit some openings but instead they just kept throwing bodies out there and wasted resources.

His generals tried to tell him to build up and then do a coordinated strike but nope, wave attacks.

There's no path to victory, just delaying the inevitable collapse.

I thought of Mariupol as "Stallin' Grad."

"Stalling Vlad"?

Not the only one skeptical

It's not encouraging when your supposed military subject matter expert repeatedly confuses 'kilotons' for 'kilograms' and then says the blast crater is too big for modern SAMs (post 1990s) without realizing the only S-300s Ukraine has are the ones it inherited when the Soviet Union collapsed and those have 100+kg warheads.

That's the same reason the OSINT folks were pretty confident in saying it was a Ukrainian air defense missile (the wreckage showed fragments of a particular rocket engine variant, one that was only used on pre-1992 S-300s). That's also very likely why Polish officials went from saying "Russian missile" to "Russian-made missile."

Either way the wreckage site is just 40km away from a massive Polish radar station that rocks one of NATO most advanced radars and there was both an E-3 Sentry AWACS loitering above Poland and a Global Hawk surveillance drone in the air at the time. In short, Poland and NATO both know where the missile (or missiles) came from.

As for the previous video my biggest issue with the theory presented that it was a rogue Russian cruise missile is that Russia is currently scrapping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to its precision guided weapons. These attacks with dozens of missiles represent a rather large chunk of their existing stocks. It's a bit much to believe they are going to waste one of those weapons trying to hit a pylon for power transmission wires instead of doing what all the other attacks have done which is to directly damage Ukrainian power stations.

Igor Girkin convicted and sentenced to life for the MH17 downing.

Conspiracy theories sure are seductive. It's still Russia's fault even if the missile was one Ukraine launched because the only reason they launched it was to try to shoot down the ones Russia did launch at them. This just means we'll have to be content with providing more aid to Ukraine, like say, giving them a bunch of newer, more reliable anti-missle defenses so this doesn't happen again.

My guess is Poland will use this as a reason to move some anti air/missile stuff to the border regardless. To protect the border and shoot down anything too close. With a strong bias against Russian targets.

Here's an interesting take on Putin's aims (not re-establishment of Russian imperial regime, just defense against the warmongering alliance of NATO, constantly invading and colonizing its neighbors):

https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and...

Top_Shelf wrote:

Here's an interesting take on Putin's aims (not re-establishment of Russian imperial regime, just defense against the warmongering alliance of NATO, constantly invading and colonizing its neighbors):

https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and...

John Mearsheimer is a deluded Cold War nostalgist. His continued employment makes me sincerely question the quality of education at the University of Chicago.

More to the point, the fact that he tries to ascribe motives to Putin that suit his own agenda that are in direct contradiction to Putin's own words should be enough for us to dismiss him entirely. He wants so badly for Russia to be the "counterbalance" to the Western, rules based international order that he ascribes to it powers and capabilities it doesn't possess. He keeps repeating "regional hegemon" or "world power" as if the recitation of it as a mantra will somehow make it true. The reality is that Russia is a declining empire with the power and influence of a medium sized European nation like Spain or Italy, but with the corruption and dysfunction of a third world mafia state. And if he were a sincere "realist", he would recognize this instead of sticking to his faith-based, dystopian romanticism.

Hmmm. He really didn't want to talk about Hungary and Orban.

Paleocon wrote:

The reality is that Russia is a declining empire with the power and influence of a medium sized European nation like Spain or Italy, but with the corruption and dysfunction of a third world mafia state.

I'd say they have more influence than that. They're still a permanent member of the UN security council, for what that's worth. Also, they have a lot of nukes, not to mention a madman at the helm. They could (attempt to) launch one at every city in the world with a population of 100,000 or more and still have some left over. The UN veto plus the ability to basically destroy all civilization on Earth if anyone attacks them do tend to lend some additional weight to their words.

Give me a DeLorean that goes 88 mph into the past and I will do my damndest to get rid of the whole permanent security council member one veto thingy.

A Rat Boy we can believe in.

The Federal Penitentiary Service reported that the male population of Russian penal colonies dropped by 23,000 in September and October. This is the largest drop of Russian prisoners in two months going back to at least 2014.

This also tracks with estimates that there are about 30,000 Wagnerites in Ukraine now.

Paleocon wrote:
Top_Shelf wrote:

Here's an interesting take on Putin's aims (not re-establishment of Russian imperial regime, just defense against the warmongering alliance of NATO, constantly invading and colonizing its neighbors):

https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and...

John Mearsheimer is a deluded Cold War nostalgist. His continued employment makes me sincerely question the quality of education at the University of Chicago.

More to the point, the fact that he tries to ascribe motives to Putin that suit his own agenda that are in direct contradiction to Putin's own words should be enough for us to dismiss him entirely. He wants so badly for Russia to be the "counterbalance" to the Western, rules based international order that he ascribes to it powers and capabilities it doesn't possess. He keeps repeating "regional hegemon" or "world power" as if the recitation of it as a mantra will somehow make it true. The reality is that Russia is a declining empire with the power and influence of a medium sized European nation like Spain or Italy, but with the corruption and dysfunction of a third world mafia state. And if he were a sincere "realist", he would recognize this instead of sticking to his faith-based, dystopian romanticism.

Mearsheimer predicted that once the Soviet Union fell Europe would decend into chaos without it. For a foreign policy expert it's amazing to see his lack of understanding of how countries beyond the superpowers actually operate. I'm sure he is informed in some areas but this ain't it.

He is a classic tankie. And he has the added bonus of being of that age and demographic that looks back fondly at a world largely divided up by “great powers” rather than participants in a rules based order.

To him and his ilk, power defined by historical status and privilege makes sense to him even if the current reality refutes it. He is invested too heavily in its preservation.

Why no one has said anything about Nord Stream.

Orrrrrr... because they're still investigating those two "dark ships".

French president discusses situation at Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in 'urgent' call with Zelensky

Like what does he say "Dammit Zelensky, you need to defeat one of the world's super powers faster while I sit around!"

Paleocon wrote:

Why no one has said anything about Nord Stream.

Not a good source, Paleo. First, while Russia is the third largest supplier to Europe, that is down from first by 800% reduction and still falling. Not to mention that Hungary accounts for a significant about of that remaining amount at this point.

On demographics, he's just wrong. The 50s are the largest demographic, then the 40s and then the 30s. It's not ideal as we are facing a population decline in about 25 years but it's hardly a continent of pensioners as Zeihan makes out. Projections in the 2000s that Europe would see massive labour market falls and declining birth rates did not come to pass but some are still stuck with that perception.

And his last point that Europe exports all it's goods to other markets because it doesn't consume itself them is laughably bad.

I'm sure he's knowledgable on some areas but I don't find him to be convincing at all to speak to European politics.

As part of its coverage of the Nord Stream explosion the BBC recently sent an underwater drone down to the wreckage site. The senior producer tweeted extra videos and pictures of the pipeline and the damage.

The tweet thread included a sonar image that showed a 48-meter-long segment of the pipeline--which is concrete wrapped welded steel--that had been blown 150 meters from the site of the explosion and bent 90 degrees. That 48-meter-long segment weighed 96 tons.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/grnrTQa.png)

There was another five-meter-long pipe segment that was vertically embedded in the sea floor over 200 meters away from the explosion site. There was no telling if the segment was the full 12-meter-long manufactured segment or just part of it. Either way the force was enough to flip an at least 10 ton hunk of steel and concrete 200 meters away.

What the hell produces that kind of force?

Conflict Armament Research (CAR) got hold of several Iranian-supplied Russian UAVs and guided munitions and broke them down to see what they were made of and, most importantly, the source of those components.

While the components came from 13 countries around the world, 82% came from companies in the US. More than half of the components were manufactured in 2020 and 2021.

Seems like our sanctions against Iran need to be re-examined and expanded.