Russia's invasion of Ukraine: Part 5

He’s not going to pull the trigger because there’s zero incentive for him to do so. Honestly, he’s just running an experiment—much like the EU and the US are doing—where they throw something at the wall just to see what sticks.
Putin isn't even weighing the consequences, whether for Russia or everyone else. He’s making moves that could be incredibly risky for every single player involved.
The stakes are massive, yet Ukraine is relatively small—he’d have to achieve a hell of a lot just to actually wreck the global economy.
The guy has been unpredictable from day one. He isn't some master strategist; he just makes moves and waits to see what happens. Same deal with the EU.
The worst part is he's destroying his own people while leveling Ukraine to the ground. That’s the playbook of a terrible player. Instead of dusting off 200-year-old history books, maybe he should have spent more time playing war games—he might have actually learned something about strategy.
He looks like a fool, even if he thinks he's outsmarting the West. It really isn't that simple. Cutting off the gas supply to Europe is basically just shooting himself in the foot.

Hmm, why do I get the feeling that Europe is way more dependent on gas than people want to admit? I'm not saying you're wrong, per se, but it feels a little too optimistic to me.

But hey, maybe you've got a point.

It’s just, my gut tells me if things were actually going the way you described, the EU would have cut ties with Russian gas a long time ago...

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James Phillips92 said:He'll end up losing his grip on power just like Ceaușescu did back in the day.

That exit had a certain flair to it. He governed with a specific brand of chaos, so it stands to reason he left with that same signature. It’s a trajectory Lukashenko might find himself following soon enough. If I were to offer a bit of a paraphrase, I’d suggest that a bullet tends to resolve certain dilemmas far more efficiently than a tractor or a bottle of vodka.

dustyowl29 said:He’s not going to pull the trigger because there’s zero incentive for him to do so. Honestly, he’s just running an experiment—much like the EU and the US are doing—where they throw something at the wall just to see what sticks.
Putin isn't even weighing the consequences, whether for Russia or everyone else. He’s making moves that could be incredibly risky for every single player involved.
The stakes are massive, yet Ukraine is relatively small—he’d have to achieve a hell of a lot just to actually wreck the global economy.
The guy has been unpredictable from day one. He isn't some master strategist; he just makes moves and waits to see what happens. Same deal with the EU.
The worst part is he's destroying his own people while leveling Ukraine to the ground. That’s the playbook of a terrible player. Instead of dusting off 200-year-old history books, maybe he should have spent more time playing war games—he might have actually learned something about strategy.
He looks like a fool, even if he thinks he's outsmarting the West. It really isn't that simple. Cutting off the gas supply to Europe is basically just shooting himself in the foot.

If you truly believe that Putin is just some reactive, uneducated idiot, then I think you’ve seriously misjudged the situation.

Nancy Gomez26 said:We should probably start logging these "arguments" alongside the dates they were uttered. It’s a predictable cycle. First, it was denying that Ukraine or Ukrainians even exist as a nation. Then came "denazification." Next, it was stopping the expansion of NATO. Then they pivoted to protecting the Russian language and those helpless, defenseless people in Ukraine. Then came the supposed biological threats—claims that they're developing bio-weapons. We've seen the talk about restoring the USSR, the theft of borscht, and now, preventing a Polish occupation of western Ukraine. If anyone remembers any other "justifications" for this "special operation," please, feel free to add them to the list. If they had just picked one single excuse and stuck to it, they might actually carry some weight. They won't ever mention a real motive. What they're doing is utterly farcical; it’s starting to look like a bad joke. It would be funny if it weren't so grim, considering people are dying on both sides every single day because of a few unserious fools sitting in the White House.

You forgot to mention they're also saving Ukraine from Western "lifestyle values." See how beautifully they explain all that on Rossiya-1?
https://twitter.com/VatnikCoPe/statu...37500752814082

Drew Fowler4 said:If you truly believe that Putin is just some reactive, uneducated idiot, then I think you’ve seriously misjudged the situation.

Are you suggesting this was the intended outcome for the entire operation in Ukraine? There is absolutely no way.

The plan was a blitzkrieg on Kyiv—a total surrender of the military. Those "Nazis" out east who refuse to back down would have been easily neutralized from behind once Kyiv fell, framed as extremists who spent eight years sowing discord among their own people. And what would the West have done? Barked at the moon? Especially when faced with threats to cut off oil and gas supplies... likely aided by a few bribed traitors within Western democracies.

Think back to how this started. "Just exercises, we aren't attacking"—then suddenly paratroopers are seizing airports, an invasion is staged from Belarus, and more than half the force moves to encircle Kyiv. They even called on the Ukrainian Armed Forces to stop fighting for a government that had already fled, urging them to lay down their arms to avoid bloodshed. It was obvious what the goal was... it certainly wasn't the stalemate they're stuck in now.

They simply didn't anticipate this level of Ukrainian resistance or the Western reaction. In the end, he's stuck on a front line that's largely unchanged for eight years, facing military humiliation and heavy sanctions, with the EU threatening to cut off trade entirely. He thought he could hold Europe hostage over energy resources...

A complete fiasco for Putin. But the war is still ongoing; let's wait two or three years, and everything will be much clearer.

Jack Hill2 said:Are you suggesting this was the intended outcome for the entire operation in Ukraine? There is absolutely no way.

The plan was a blitzkrieg on Kyiv—a total surrender of the military. Those "Nazis" out east who refuse to back down would have been easily neutralized from behind once Kyiv fell, framed as extremists who spent eight years sowing discord among their own people. And what would the West have done? Barked at the moon? Especially when faced with threats to cut off oil and gas supplies... likely aided by a few bribed traitors within Western democracies.

Think back to how this started. "Just exercises, we aren't attacking"—then suddenly paratroopers are seizing airports, an invasion is staged from Belarus, and more than half the force moves to encircle Kyiv. They even called on the Ukrainian Armed Forces to stop fighting for a government that had already fled, urging them to lay down their arms to avoid bloodshed. It was obvious what the goal was... it certainly wasn't the stalemate they're stuck in now.

They simply didn't anticipate this level of Ukrainian resistance or the Western reaction. In the end, he's stuck on a front line that's largely unchanged for eight years, facing military humiliation and heavy sanctions, with the EU threatening to cut off trade entirely. He thought he could hold Europe hostage over energy resources...

A complete fiasco for Putin. But the war is still ongoing; let's wait two or three years, and everything will be much clearer.

I didn't say the operation went according to his playbook; I said the man isn't an idiot. He is an exceptionally intelligent individual—something he has demonstrated countless times—and as for who is truly responsible for this conflict, every single contributing factor... well, that will become transparent in due time.

For the time being, it seems clear that despite massive losses, Russia will come out on top. As for what happens next to the global economy or the Russian economy specifically? That remains to be seen.

Drew Fowler4 said:I didn't say the operation went according to his playbook; I said the man isn't an idiot. He is an exceptionally intelligent individual—something he has demonstrated countless times—and as for who is truly responsible for this conflict, every single contributing factor... well, that will become transparent in due time.

For the time being, it seems clear that despite massive losses, Russia will come out on top. As for what happens next to the global economy or the Russian economy specifically? That remains to be seen.

Please. He’s just your run-of-the-mill, crafty little CIA bureaucrat who finally let power go straight to his head.

Drew Fowler4 said:I didn't say the operation went according to his playbook; I said the man isn't an idiot. He is an exceptionally intelligent individual—something he has demonstrated countless times—and as for who is truly responsible for this conflict, every single contributing factor... well, that will become transparent in due time.

For the time being, it seems clear that despite massive losses, Russia will come out on top. As for what happens next to the global economy or the Russian economy specifically? That remains to be seen.

Just a bunch of empty word salad.

Ukrainian officials mentioned on Saturday that Kyiv is looking to push forward with peace talks with Russia by the end of August once they've finished up their counteroffensive operations, even though things are still getting pretty intense out in the eastern part of the country.

Looks like they might be celebrating an August 5th national holiday too, haha 🙂

Drew Fowler4 said:I didn't say the operation went according to his playbook; I said the man isn't an idiot. He is an exceptionally intelligent individual—something he has demonstrated countless times—and as for who is truly responsible for this conflict, every single contributing factor... well, that will become transparent in due time.

For the time being, it seems clear that despite massive losses, Russia will come out on top. As for what happens next to the global economy or the Russian economy specifically? That remains to be seen.

Honestly, you don't even need much brainpower to pull off what he's doing.
At the end of the day, we're looking at a massive hypocrite—a complete coward with nothing but totalitarian tendencies.

He didn't go after the Baltic states that joined NATO, and he won't touch Finland—which is actually a legitimate threat since they might start demanding reclaimed territory. No, instead, he went after Georgia and Ukraine, which couldn't secure the Donbas and ended up settling for the Minsk agreements—leaving all their officials perfectly safe in Russia.
The guy is a tactical genius in the sense that he whines about nuclear weapons every single time the international community patheticly offers support to Ukraine.

Drew Fowler4 said:I didn't say the operation went according to his playbook; I said the man isn't an idiot. He is an exceptionally intelligent individual—something he has demonstrated countless times—and as for who is truly responsible for this conflict, every single contributing factor... well, that will become transparent in due time.

For the time being, it seems clear that despite massive losses, Russia will come out on top. As for what happens next to the global economy or the Russian economy specifically? That remains to be seen.

Sure, just like in WWII. The poor folks from the middle of nowhere died (read: cannon fodder) while the elite—namely Putin and his inner circle—walked away with all the spoils.

placidtiger142 said:Hmm, why do I get the feeling that Europe is way more dependent on gas than people want to admit? I'm not saying you're wrong, per se, but it feels a little too optimistic to me.

But hey, maybe you've got a point.

It’s just, my gut tells me if things were actually going the way you described, the EU would have cut ties with Russian gas a long time ago...

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Current state of gas storage in Europe (June 17, 2022) — EU data storage

EU — 53.04% ( 584 TWh ; average consumption Nov 2021 - March 2022 ~ 6 TWh )

Consumption over the last month or two has averaged 0.2-0.3 TWh / per day ; supplemented by 4-5 TWh / per day.
With this amount, the EU has enough gas for about 100 days during fall/winter (assuming zero replenishment and ignoring any conservation efforts).
Peak capacity back in Fall 2021 was 75%, while the low point in Spring 2022 hit 25%.

Portugal — 97.49%
Poland — 97.31%
UK — 95%
Denmark — 74.61%
Czech Republic — 71.25%
Spain — 70.48%
Germany — 57.03%
France — 56.96%
Italy — 54.48%
Slovakia — 52.44%
Belgium — 51.66%
Austria — 40.87%
Romania — 38.11%
Canada — 37.25%
Bulgaria — 31.52%
America — 24.52%

This "special military operation" stuff? Honestly, it feels like we're watching WWII all over again.

The Ukrainians are getting a fresh shipment, and most importantly, they're getting artillery right where the Russians currently have the upper hand:

https://www.defense.gov/News/News-St...ed-to-ukraine/

Just a heads up, that video I linked above comes from a pro-Russian channel. I actually enjoy diving into propaganda from both sides just to try and wrap my head around what’s really going on.

If you’re actually following this whole war between Ukraine and Russia, you seriously need to watch this:



There's this Finnish Intelligence Colonel who has spent his entire life studying Russia—their mindset, how they operate, all of it—and he's laying it all out in this video.

The video is in Finnish, so just make sure to hit the CC button for subtitles, but man, it is absolutely worth your time.

Honestly, it kind of blew my mind because I’ve talked to Russians online before and always figured we were basically on the same page as Europeans, you know? Like, we share the same core values and think along similar lines. Turns out, that’s just not true at all. The way they process things and act... it's just completely different from us. They’re foreign to us, having a totally different mindset, almost like how we view the Chinese, but everyone expects that level of difference with China. This was a massive wake-up call for me, and suddenly a lot of things are clicking into place—from their behavior in this current war to some other weird interactions I've had with Russians in the past.

He explains it perfectly: in the Russian mentality, lying is perfectly acceptable as long as you're doing it for the sake of your group, and if you do, you don't lose any respect within that circle. Just look at what Lavrov was doing right when the war kicked off. You could even draw some parallels to our neighbors over in the North America... because it feels like they live in their own parallel reality sometimes. And even in this conflict, they seem much more aligned with Russia and their specific values than with the West.

https://mobile.twitter.com/Osinttech...C9nZmT9dgqAAAA

Look, it's not like Russia is some honest-to-god legitimate government that has zero intention of trying to annex everything they grab... right? And then you see a headline on Gazeta.ru basically bragging about how the grain harvest from the Kherson region is going to lead to a record-breaking year for their profits.

hollowdriver13 said:https://mobile.twitter.com/Osinttech...C9nZmT9dgqAAAA

Look, it's not like Russia is some honest-to-god legitimate government that has zero intention of trying to annex everything they grab... right? And then you see a headline on Gazeta.ru basically bragging about how the grain harvest from the Kherson region is going to lead to a record-breaking year for their profits.

Pipe dreams are coming true.

It’s like if the Midwest became the breadbasket for a different nation, or if a landlocked state suddenly gained access to the Atlantic coast. For the average person there, it's a point of pride. A way to validate the strength of a Great Russia...

That’s just the nature of the people, and we've seen this playbook before. I get why someone from Monaco might find it shocking, but in the States, we understand how this works...

Joshua Bishop3 said:If you’re actually following this whole war between Ukraine and Russia, you seriously need to watch this:

There's this Finnish Intelligence Colonel who has spent his entire life studying Russia—their mindset, how they operate, all of it—and he's laying it all out in this video.

The video is in Finnish, so just make sure to hit the CC button for subtitles, but man, it is absolutely worth your time.

Honestly, it kind of blew my mind because I’ve talked to Russians online before and always figured we were basically on the same page as Europeans, you know? Like, we share the same core values and think along similar lines. Turns out, that’s just not true at all. The way they process things and act... it's just completely different from us. They’re foreign to us, having a totally different mindset, almost like how we view the Chinese, but everyone expects that level of difference with China. This was a massive wake-up call for me, and suddenly a lot of things are clicking into place—from their behavior in this current war to some other weird interactions I've had with Russians in the past.

He explains it perfectly: in the Russian mentality, lying is perfectly acceptable as long as you're doing it for the sake of your group, and if you do, you don't lose any respect within that circle. Just look at what Lavrov was doing right when the war kicked off. You could even draw some parallels to our neighbors over in the North America... because it feels like they live in their own parallel reality sometimes. And even in this conflict, they seem much more aligned with Russia and their specific values than with the West.

Otherwise, you just won't understand certain things. Politicians in every country lie if it serves their nation's interests. With our own politicians, you might only hear the truth when it actually goes against the interests of the US.

hollowdriver13 said:https://mobile.twitter.com/Osinttech...C9nZmT9dgqAAAA

Look, it's not like Russia is some honest-to-god legitimate government that has zero intention of trying to annex everything they grab... right? And then you see a headline on Gazeta.ru basically bragging about how the grain harvest from the Kherson region is going to lead to a record-breaking year for their profits.

The average Russian citizen won't see a single cent of that money. Some will end up leaving their bones in Ukraine, others will be busy operating mobile crematoriums, and some will just crawl back home as invalids. Those who aren't fighting will likely stay in the same spot or struggle a bit more—but meanwhile, the oligarchs will definitely upgrade to a bigger yacht and find a few more extras to bring along for the ride.

James Phillips92 said:Otherwise, you just won't understand certain things. Politicians in every country lie if it serves their nation's interests. With our own politicians, you might only hear the truth when it actually goes against the interests of the US.

Everyone lies, but nobody does it quite like the Russians or the Mexicans. They take it to such an extreme level that they actually start believing their own nonsense! 😁
I mean, look, it's obvious everyone's lying, but the Russians push it way past the limit and they do it so blatantly it's almost laughable.

placidtiger142 said:Look, we all know what the real issues are here: oil, gas, and everything else under the dirt.

Russ wants to become the world's top energy superpower because they just can't compete economically or militarily anymore.

They might be #1 on territory, and maybe even on energy resources too, so they’re playing that specific card.

It's like, sure, go ahead and be the greatest carpenter on the planet with the fanciest tools, but I'm the one who actually owns all the wood.

Anyway, this whole gas situation could get seriously ugly.

I honestly think the EU has totally underestimated the Russian thoroughbred in this race—specifically when it comes to gas and oil.

Winter is coming, and if they really decide to turn off the tap, the EU could completely fall apart. We're talking full-blown internal chaos.

Let's try to actually wrap our heads around what would happen if they just shut it all down.

The entire EU industrial sector would collapse. Maybe like 50% of people over there would end up unemployed, freezing their asses off. People would start doing crazy stuff. Stealing, looting, whatever it takes just to survive.

Unfortunately, the EU is living in a dream world if they think they can just swap out those Russian energy supplies in a year or two... And it isn't just about gas and oil that they're hooked on. Fertilizers, steel... you name it.

But hey, let's hear it—what's your scenario if they actually cut the supply?

To me, it looks like that would absolutely bring Europe to its knees. You only see real unity in an alliance once the dark days actually hit.

It's easy to play at being united and solid while Ukraine is getting hammered and we're all sitting pretty, eating gourmet food, driving our shiny new cars, hitting the beach or the slopes, and messing around with Bitcoin because we don't know what else to do.

I'd love to see that "unity" when Germany has to shutter Siemens, Daimler, and VW... or when the French and Italians have to shut down their factories because, well, there's no heat and nothing else that runs on gas.

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Fair enough. Look, there are things that can be done about it.
Regarding scheduling: most people work a standard 9-to-5. We could stagger industrial and business hours so energy consumption is spread evenly throughout the day. Right now, massive amounts of energy produced overnight are simply wasted.
As for restrictions: since people tend to look out for themselves rather than the common good, we could limit energy access during peak hours for consumers who aren't vital to the economy.
Then there's restarting certain power plants based on political willpower. There are dozens of nuclear and thermal plants closed across Europe. If they were running, we wouldn't need to import nearly as much of that famous gas and oil. But, of course, it’s easier to just import from Russia; they don't care about pollution, and people don't seem to ask questions.
Investing in renewables to replace imported fuels.
And investing in new tech to lower consumption and replace critical imports like rare earth metals. We already see examples, like cars equipped with solar panels that top up the battery. An average driver with a car like that would rarely need to plug in. We also have hydrogen-powered cars, heavy machinery, and trucks ready to go. With the right policy support, these technologies would scale quickly and replace the old stuff.
If there's any will, there's a way. It doesn't even have to result in job losses; in fact, these new technologies could create hundreds of thousands of new jobs across Europe...