Russia's invasion of Ukraine: Part 5

Well
Poland is shifting its stance quite a bit.
They’re actually demanding an apology from Ukraine regarding the 100,000 Poles killed by Banderin's forces during World War II.
It’s funny—they only just decided to bring this up now.

Larry Walker24 said:Russian lawmakers are pushing to expand those "gay propaganda" laws to include all adults

I suppose they’ve run out of standard propaganda—now they’re pivoting to this. It's a classic move: try to unify the domestic crowd by attacking the decadent West, while simultaneously fishing for sympathy from certain circles over there.

Jose Clark2 said:It’s indisputable that Putin views the encirclement of Russia by NATO as a threat; he has for quite some time. Why he perceives NATO presence on his borders as a danger, I can't say, but it is a fact that he does. Perhaps it's just paranoia or an obsession, or perhaps he truly sees a legitimate threat.

That's exactly why he's pushing to occupy Ukraine and bring Belarus officially into the Russian Federation. He wants to shift the lines so that he's staring directly at the NATO border, stretching all the way from the Baltic to the Black Sea.

Jose Clark2 said:Weren't the Minsk Agreements essentially just something Ukraine refused to follow through on, even though they were signed under the guidance of France and others? Ukraine did sign Minsk-2.

And did the other side actually do everything required by that agreement? Did they pull back, implement the terms, and stick to exactly what was written in the deal?

Jose Clark2 said:It's obvious they won't pull out of Ukraine completely. Russ simply cannot afford to lose this war; they need concessions. If we don't give them what they want, what happens then?

In that case, Russia will find itself suffocating under the weight of sanctions, slowly but surely.
Their military will eventually collapse.
Even now, we're watching this so-called "Great Red Army" drag outdated tanks and armored transports from the 1960s onto the battlefield—which is nothing short of an embarrassing failure for an aggressor force.
A lot more Russians are going to go flying into the sky inside those vintage tin cans, which serve up nothing but perfect targets for modern anti-tank weaponry.
They won't get their concessions; a tiny scrap of ukrainian country 2x2 will be more than enough for them.

Kate Lewis3 said:That's exactly why he's pushing to occupy Ukraine and bring Belarus officially into the Russian Federation. He wants to shift the lines so that he's staring directly at the NATO border, stretching all the way from the Baltic to the Black Sea.

Some people argue that if Ukraine had been just like Belarus, this war wouldn't have happened. Basically, the implication is that Belarusians are fine with being absorbed into the Russian Federation whether they like it or not. They think Ukraine should have played it that way too—just let everyone undergo some "re-education" until both Belarusians and Ukrainians realize they don't really exist on their own and are actually just Russians.

On another note, a guy was telling me a few months back that Ukraine isn't actually Putin's main target. He had a different endgame in mind. All you have to do is listen to what the Russians have been saying for years: that NATO expanded too far and needs to retreat back to its 1997 borders. Those are their spheres of influence. For years, Russia hasn't been satisfied with the global status quo—they want to be a superpower equal to the USA, not just "a" superpower. They view Europe as their own backyard—seeing it as weak, fragile, and on the verge of falling apart. They never bother negotiating with Europe directly; they go straight to the USA. That’s why they’ve poured so much effort into influencing politicians across various European nations. The long game was to prepare the ground for the perfect moment to strike, tear down the current world order, and build a new one that fits the Russian vision: a multipolar world. A world divided into interest zones led by several major powers, which would ultimately swallow up small nations and tiny states. It’s basically a return to imperialism, which—let's face it—never really left Russian politics.
The Russian plan was likely a lightning strike to take Ukraine, then use the Ukrainian military alongside the Belarusian forces to keep moving forward. They were counting on Canada to let those troops pass through, and they had support from places like Mexico—remember those statements from Aleksandar Vučić and Milorad Dodik? Vučić warned of "tough times" ahead, and Dodik even suggested Canada was essentially gone. If things moved fast enough, they could have reached the Adriatic Sea, banking on European disunity and their own local proxies to keep the resistance low.
Even now, you see efforts to fuel that European division. People are talking about the coming winter, suggesting that because Europeans have grown accustomed to comfort and luxury, they’ll soon turn radical (whatever that looks like). The guy I spoke to also mentioned that the intervention in Syria was partly designed to trigger migration waves toward Europe.
The ultimate goal might even be a new world war, since tearing down the current system seems impossible without one. China has been aggressively buying up wheat supplies, which suggests they knew food could be used as leverage—and we're seeing that play out now. Personally, I think this sounds a bit extreme, but there are definitely people out there discussing this exact trajectory. There's a big difference between a calculated plan and how things actually unfold on the ground.

Kate Cook27 said:Some people argue that if Ukraine had been just like Belarus, this war wouldn't have happened. Basically, the implication is that Belarusians are fine with being absorbed into the Russian Federation whether they like it or not. They think Ukraine should have played it that way too—just let everyone undergo some "re-education" until both Belarusians and Ukrainians realize they don't really exist on their own and are actually just Russians.

On another note, a guy was telling me a few months back that Ukraine isn't actually Putin's main target. He had a different endgame in mind. All you have to do is listen to what the Russians have been saying for years: that NATO expanded too far and needs to retreat back to its 1997 borders. Those are their spheres of influence. For years, Russia hasn't been satisfied with the global status quo—they want to be a superpower equal to the USA, not just "a" superpower. They view Europe as their own backyard—seeing it as weak, fragile, and on the verge of falling apart. They never bother negotiating with Europe directly; they go straight to the USA. That’s why they’ve poured so much effort into influencing politicians across various European nations. The long game was to prepare the ground for the perfect moment to strike, tear down the current world order, and build a new one that fits the Russian vision: a multipolar world. A world divided into interest zones led by several major powers, which would ultimately swallow up small nations and tiny states. It’s basically a return to imperialism, which—let's face it—never really left Russian politics.
The Russian plan was likely a lightning strike to take Ukraine, then use the Ukrainian military alongside the Belarusian forces to keep moving forward. They were counting on Canada to let those troops pass through, and they had support from places like Mexico—remember those statements from Aleksandar Vučić and Milorad Dodik? Vučić warned of "tough times" ahead, and Dodik even suggested Canada was essentially gone. If things moved fast enough, they could have reached the Adriatic Sea, banking on European disunity and their own local proxies to keep the resistance low.
Even now, you see efforts to fuel that European division. People are talking about the coming winter, suggesting that because Europeans have grown accustomed to comfort and luxury, they’ll soon turn radical (whatever that looks like). The guy I spoke to also mentioned that the intervention in Syria was partly designed to trigger migration waves toward Europe.
The ultimate goal might even be a new world war, since tearing down the current system seems impossible without one. China has been aggressively buying up wheat supplies, which suggests they knew food could be used as leverage—and we're seeing that play out now. Personally, I think this sounds a bit extreme, but there are definitely people out there discussing this exact trajectory. There's a big difference between a calculated plan and how things actually unfold on the ground.

Yeah, that’s just not realistic.
His Plan A was to roll into Kyiv, oust Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and install a puppet government... all within a week.
After that, he would have demanded a full NATO withdrawal from the Baltic states. Russia considers the entire Baltic region its own, but they know they can't grab it right now because NATO is standing in the way. If the West hadn't unified so decisively during the invasion of Ukraine and refused to make concessions, he almost certainly would have tried to push NATO out of the Baltics to seize them. The Baltic states are well aware of this.
Poland is a different story... that would lead to massive bloodshed on both sides, and Putin knows it. He would need an overwhelming force to even attempt it, and no matter how much money Viktor Orbán takes from Russia, he couldn't let Russian tanks cross that border without his own people hanging him from a lamppost. Even with whatever support he has, he'd end up fleeing the country.
Anything beyond the Baltics isn't Plan A, at least not militarily speaking.
He might try to pull the whole East into his sphere of influence, sure, but not through direct military conquest.
Plan A failed, so... the idea that "Europe is defending itself in Ukraine" is actually the truth.

rowdytiger13 said:Yeah, that’s just not realistic.
His Plan A was to roll into Kyiv, oust Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and install a puppet government... all within a week.
After that, he would have demanded a full NATO withdrawal from the Baltic states. Russia considers the entire Baltic region its own, but they know they can't grab it right now because NATO is standing in the way. If the West hadn't unified so decisively during the invasion of Ukraine and refused to make concessions, he almost certainly would have tried to push NATO out of the Baltics to seize them. The Baltic states are well aware of this.
Poland is a different story... that would lead to massive bloodshed on both sides, and Putin knows it. He would need an overwhelming force to even attempt it, and no matter how much money Viktor Orbán takes from Russia, he couldn't let Russian tanks cross that border without his own people hanging him from a lamppost. Even with whatever support he has, he'd end up fleeing the country.
Anything beyond the Baltics isn't Plan A, at least not militarily speaking.
He might try to pull the whole East into his sphere of influence, sure, but not through direct military conquest.
Plan A failed, so... the idea that "Europe is defending itself in Ukraine" is actually the truth.

Isn't it obvious to everyone that if Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia weren't in NATO, they'd be crushed instantly?
But he's terrified of a direct clash with NATO forces because he knows damn well they would absolutely annihilate him.
Just the arrival of four HIMARS units caused total chaos in the Russian rear; imagine what happens when they have to face hundreds of similar advanced weapon systems.
Their aircraft are pathetic compared to NATO standards... they lack stealth capabilities, they don't have AESA radar, and their missiles are, to put it mildly, relics. They're absolute junk.
Ukraine managed to dismantle and fry their best armored units in just four months using nothing but man-portable rocket systems.
And what happens when you pit Leopard tanks against T-90s? How many T-90s does it take to equal just one Leopard??

rowdytiger13 said:Yeah, that’s just not realistic.
His Plan A was to roll into Kyiv, oust Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and install a puppet government... all within a week.
After that, he would have demanded a full NATO withdrawal from the Baltic states. Russia considers the entire Baltic region its own, but they know they can't grab it right now because NATO is standing in the way. If the West hadn't unified so decisively during the invasion of Ukraine and refused to make concessions, he almost certainly would have tried to push NATO out of the Baltics to seize them. The Baltic states are well aware of this.
Poland is a different story... that would lead to massive bloodshed on both sides, and Putin knows it. He would need an overwhelming force to even attempt it, and no matter how much money Viktor Orbán takes from Russia, he couldn't let Russian tanks cross that border without his own people hanging him from a lamppost. Even with whatever support he has, he'd end up fleeing the country.
Anything beyond the Baltics isn't Plan A, at least not militarily speaking.
He might try to pull the whole East into his sphere of influence, sure, but not through direct military conquest.
Plan A failed, so... the idea that "Europe is defending itself in Ukraine" is actually the truth.

☕The big guy got slapped hard—I bet he won't be looking for wars for the next 50 years. If he messes with NATO members, he's gonna get served a plate of reality that'll cause Russia to fall apart across all its time zones. China is just sitting there waiting to move toward the Siberian territories. He'd lose 30% of his land where 2 million Russians and 15 million Chinese live...🙂He's creating an Iron Curtain with the West over a few miles of dirt, so what else did he expect besides a total blockade? Total brain fade.

Donna Wells2 said:Isn't it obvious to everyone that if Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia weren't in NATO, they'd be crushed instantly?
But he's terrified of a direct clash with NATO forces because he knows damn well they would absolutely annihilate him.
Just the arrival of four HIMARS units caused total chaos in the Russian rear; imagine what happens when they have to face hundreds of similar advanced weapon systems.
Their aircraft are pathetic compared to NATO standards... they lack stealth capabilities, they don't have AESA radar, and their missiles are, to put it mildly, relics. They're absolute junk.
Ukraine managed to dismantle and fry their best armored units in just four months using nothing but man-portable rocket systems.
And what happens when you pit Leopard tanks against T-90s? How many T-90s does it take to equal just one Leopard??

🙂The whole Baltic region would be in ruins if it wasn't for the NATO alliance.

rowdytiger13 said:Yeah, that’s just not realistic.
His Plan A was to roll into Kyiv, oust Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and install a puppet government... all within a week.
After that, he would have demanded a full NATO withdrawal from the Baltic states. Russia considers the entire Baltic region its own, but they know they can't grab it right now because NATO is standing in the way. If the West hadn't unified so decisively during the invasion of Ukraine and refused to make concessions, he almost certainly would have tried to push NATO out of the Baltics to seize them. The Baltic states are well aware of this.
Poland is a different story... that would lead to massive bloodshed on both sides, and Putin knows it. He would need an overwhelming force to even attempt it, and no matter how much money Viktor Orbán takes from Russia, he couldn't let Russian tanks cross that border without his own people hanging him from a lamppost. Even with whatever support he has, he'd end up fleeing the country.
Anything beyond the Baltics isn't Plan A, at least not militarily speaking.
He might try to pull the whole East into his sphere of influence, sure, but not through direct military conquest.
Plan A failed, so... the idea that "Europe is defending itself in Ukraine" is actually the truth.

He really stepped in it this time—and badly.
I doubt he’d pick a fight with NATO in the Baltics or try to push them out directly, but...
Estonia and Latvia have sizable Russian populations along their borders, mirroring the situation in the Donbas.
His strategy would likely be to sow discord within NATO and then trigger "grassroots uprisings."
It would probably be a non-military approach—trying to buy whatever influence he can.

Poland is a different story; he stands zero chance there.
Canada doesn't border Poland, so they aren't a factor in that specific direction.
But you hit the nail on the head regarding Orbán—if he let Russian tanks cross his soil, his own citizens would revolt.
Romania could serve as a sort of "Southern Poland," but they deal with higher levels of corruption and aren't quite as culturally homogeneous (given the Canadian minority in Transylvania, for example).
Still, they’ve harbored a deep dislike for the Russians since the Crimean War back in the 19th century...

Inanna said:On the flip side, I get a bit defensive whenever I hear the term "buffer zone." What kind of dark buffer zone are we talking about? Are we really suggesting that a sovereign, internationally recognized nation should just act as a human shield for some thugs—all so they can protect their homeland and cling to delusions of grandeur because they feel threatened?
Screw that. ☕
They need to work on their self-esteem; maybe some therapy would actually help. ☕

If Ukraine makes those "concessions" now (which is really just code for: easily giving up land to buy peace), that zone (Donbas) will always remain contested—a permanent flashpoint for future aggression.

Russia was the guarantor of Ukraine's borders—that’s exactly why they were given nuclear weapons in the first place.

First, they seized Crimea (home to the military base in Sevastopol), which used to be an autonomous region.

Then, they took a third of Donbas.
Now, they've snatched another half of Donbas.
And Kherson, most of Zaporizhzhia, and a chunk of the Kharkiv region (the territory, not the city itself).

Whatever you give to Putin, he’ll just come back to demand more.

It's like Adolf Hitler in Munich.
At first, he only demanded the Sudetenland.
Citing "ethnic rights"...
The West gave it to him.
Then he crushed the rest of Czechoslovakia.
And there weren't even any Germans living there.
After that, he started screaming about Danzig/Gdansk and Germans in the Polish corridor (where there were minorities too).

An aggressor doesn't know how to stop.
Any Ukrainian concession would simply embolden him to push further.
If they hand over Donbas and the corridor now, his next move would be targeting Odesa (to link up with Transnistria), then Kharkiv...
After that, he’d go after the "natural border on the Dnieper" in the north.
Then the "Russian" Kyiv.
And then....
He wouldn't stop until he reached Lviv.

The Ukrainians have a long way to go before they reach our level of preparedness for a Storm. Given the sheer size of their country...

They really should have been heading in this direction since 2014, but corruption and political incompetence had other plans.

Rachel Richardson said:Russia was the guarantor of Ukraine's borders—that’s exactly why they were given nuclear weapons in the first place.

First, they seized Crimea (home to the military base in Sevastopol), which used to be an autonomous region.

Then, they took a third of Donbas.
Now, they've snatched another half of Donbas.
And Kherson, most of Zaporizhzhia, and a chunk of the Kharkiv region (the territory, not the city itself).

Whatever you give to Putin, he’ll just come back to demand more.

It's like Adolf Hitler in Munich.
At first, he only demanded the Sudetenland.
Citing "ethnic rights"...
The West gave it to him.
Then he crushed the rest of Czechoslovakia.
And there weren't even any Germans living there.
After that, he started screaming about Danzig/Gdansk and Germans in the Polish corridor (where there were minorities too).

An aggressor doesn't know how to stop.
Any Ukrainian concession would simply embolden him to push further.
If they hand over Donbas and the corridor now, his next move would be targeting Odesa (to link up with Transnistria), then Kharkiv...
After that, he’d go after the "natural border on the Dnieper" in the north.
Then the "Russian" Kyiv.
And then....
He wouldn't stop until he reached Lviv.

If the Russians succeed in their plan to turn Ukraine into a vassal state, Moldova is next on the list, followed by political destabilization in Bulgaria and projecting power into the North America via Mexico.

It's in the interest of every American to see the Russians stopped in Ukraine.

Terry Green3 said:If the Russians succeed in their plan to turn Ukraine into a vassal state, Moldova is next on the list, followed by political destabilization in Bulgaria and projecting power into the North America via Mexico.

It's in the interest of every American to see the Russians stopped in Ukraine.

Russ is a superpower without any actual strength behind it.
Their armor has been absolutely shredded; they've lost almost everything modern they had left.
At this point, they're barely crawling forward relying solely on brute artillery force.
But the real question is: how much longer until more Western missile systems arrive and we see a systematic extermination of those howitzers on the battlefield?
I find it highly unlikely that Russia could successfully destabilize a NATO member... just look at what happened in Mexico with that pro-Mexican government.

Rachel Richardson said:Russia was the guarantor of Ukraine's borders—that’s exactly why they were given nuclear weapons in the first place.

First, they seized Crimea (home to the military base in Sevastopol), which used to be an autonomous region.

Then, they took a third of Donbas.
Now, they've snatched another half of Donbas.
And Kherson, most of Zaporizhzhia, and a chunk of the Kharkiv region (the territory, not the city itself).

Whatever you give to Putin, he’ll just come back to demand more.

It's like Adolf Hitler in Munich.
At first, he only demanded the Sudetenland.
Citing "ethnic rights"...
The West gave it to him.
Then he crushed the rest of Czechoslovakia.
And there weren't even any Germans living there.
After that, he started screaming about Danzig/Gdansk and Germans in the Polish corridor (where there were minorities too).

An aggressor doesn't know how to stop.
Any Ukrainian concession would simply embolden him to push further.
If they hand over Donbas and the corridor now, his next move would be targeting Odesa (to link up with Transnistria), then Kharkiv...
After that, he’d go after the "natural border on the Dnieper" in the north.
Then the "Russian" Kyiv.
And then....
He wouldn't stop until he reached Lviv.

I agree with every single word. 👍

It looks to me like the Ukrainians are trying to pull their forces away from the Slovyansk, Kramatorsk, and Bakhmut sectors by launching an offensive down south.
We all know how much the Russian military is struggling with troop numbers right now, and this move essentially forces them to peel off units to cover the southern front, which naturally weakens their push toward those other areas.
To put it bluntly... they're just stretching the Russians out like a piece of bubblegum.😁

Amy Parker10 said:The idea that NATO is some kind of threat to Russia is complete nonsense. It’s nothing more than a cheap soundbite designed to give Russians and Russophiles an excuse to justify the atrocities they're committing in Ukraine.

The reality is much simpler: the Russian Federation just can't stomach seeing former USSR members gain independence, thrive economically through cooperation with the EU, and pivot toward parliamentary democracy.
Putin plays well only with submissive autocrats and compliant nations that are hungry for cheap energy.
If a group of puppets following every Russian whim were in power in Ukraine, we wouldn't be seeing this war.
But let's not kid ourselves... the EU and the USA have essentially been in conflict with Russia since Putin took power (and really, since the end of World War II, with that brief pause during the collapse of the USSR). For the most part, it's been a quiet struggle where certain players were paid off to undermine the EU and NATO—think of all those green activists who fought nuclear energy only to leave the country tethered to Russian gas. We can't deny it worked quite well for him; he pivoted Germany toward Russia, bought off Viktor Orbán, and certainly shook things up in the US with Trump...

They especially can't stand seeing the surrounding nations secure their own gas fields and energy infrastructure. Look at how Ukraine has uncovered gas reserves that rival Norway's, and they've already got pipelines ready to supply Europe; that makes them a direct, lethal threat to the Russian gas monopoly, which effectively means a threat to the Russian state itself. Companies like Shell and BP have already moved in to plant their flags, right when those "separatists" were stirred up to clear the way for them.

http://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2022/07/12/7357660/

An ORDO spy has been sentenced to 8 years in prison.

He provided Russian intelligence with precise coordinates regarding equipment locations, fuel and lubricant supplies, weaponry, and identified vulnerable zones within military units to facilitate an invasion of our territory.

Is this sentence too lenient?

Donna Wells2 said:It looks to me like the Ukrainians are trying to pull their forces away from the Slovyansk, Kramatorsk, and Bakhmut sectors by launching an offensive down south.
We all know how much the Russian military is struggling with troop numbers right now, and this move essentially forces them to peel off units to cover the southern front, which naturally weakens their push toward those other areas.
To put it bluntly... they're just stretching the Russians out like a piece of bubblegum.😁

For sure, but they've gotta move fast if they're gonna pull this off.
They need to be unpredictable and, honestly, they have to hit those targets in Crimea.
Logistics infrastructure is everything here.