The start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine (Part 1)

This president of Ukraine doesn't actually represent the Ukrainian people.
Why isn't anyone even talking about this?

Matthew Rodriguez9 said:urbanotter, it’s honestly kind of hilarious watching the West try to numb the public with all these big-name sanctions, acting like they're some kind of checkmate against Vladimir Putin.

So, during a press conference today, Jens Stoltenberg was asked by a reporter if NATO was actually planning on stepping up with air and ground support for Ukraine.

He just sort of mumbled his way through it—you know the drill, basically saying we’re helping constantly but we're totally powerless to offer anything more significant.

Honestly, enough is enough.

Alongside anti-armor gear, they are starting to ship out anti-aircraft weapons as well.

"Allies intend to continue providing support"

Stoltenberg also mentioned that several of the 30 member nations have announced the specific types of weaponry they will be delivering to Ukraine.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stated today that the military alliance is deploying additional units to Eastern Europe and will maintain its shipments of weaponry to Ukraine, including air defense systems.

gentlecrane8 said:What if Ukraine just followed the Chechnya playbook and cut some sweet deals with Russia to secure its own economic standing and aid? They could ditch NATO entirely and play it smart by cooperating with both the East and the West without all this constant warfare. Imagine them actually focusing on real economic growth instead of just living off empty promises and being pushed into endless conflicts. So far, besides a bunch of weapons—which we all know will come with a massive bill one day—they haven't seen any serious cash from either the European Union or the USA. Honestly, they should just work with anyone willing to actually invest and do business in Ukraine. Why not try to have your cake and eat it too?☕

I mean, how exactly did Chechnya prosper once Kadyrov (and then his son) started sucking up to Putin? Sure, the elites are doing fine, but we're talking about the average person here. Seriously, those Kadyrov types just do whatever suits them, even when it's against their own people. They're just savages who happened to get modern weapons.

Gritty said:Instead of just attacking world leaders, you might want to actually use some logic.

Take NATO, for example.

It’s a military alliance—essentially a coalition of the most powerful nations on Earth—that was originally established to counter the Soviet Union. That was a long time ago. Since then, the Soviet Union collapsed, communism disappeared, and instead of dissolving, NATO has expanded right up to Russia's doorstep, threatening infiltration into Ukraine, and now there's talk about other countries too.

NATO is an anti-Russian military alliance, and Russia views it as a direct threat to its very survival. In that context, their reaction makes sense.

You can't really offend Putin. He's a tough guy.🙂

Look, Russia shouldn't complain if other countries decide they want to join NATO. They ought to ask themselves why they aren't being embraced by Europe.
If they were acting normally, they'd have a great standing. But they aren't.
Will they ever change? I doubt it.

I guess the joke's on us then—ICBMs (the kind carrying nukes) with an 11,000km range have been spotted being moved at a few different sites.
https://twitter.com/Caucasuswar/stat...ybR4VkpsQ&s=19

Julius Caesar said:You're basically calling for genocide here.

Not surprising coming from a Putin supporter.

Does cutting off water supplies bother you?

The government in Ukraine cut off the water supply to people in Crimea back in 2014.
Just shutting off the water, closing a dam, or rerouting rivers is enough to trigger a war.

Russia had a legitimate reason to declare war way back in 2014, and it was totally legal.

hollowdriver13 said:The logic here is just incredible. Truly mind-blowing stuff...🤦

"They fund every single evil thing on Earth"
"But how can you be sure about that?"
"I just know, and you're just too clueless to see it." 🙏

Look, they're really just one tiny cog in the machine...

The military-industrial complex is a much bigger player in this game...but let's not go down that rabbit hole...

I only mentioned Silicon Valley to make a point.

So, what's the latest buzz on Twitter? Are the Ukrainians making headway? I honestly feel like they might already be at the gates of Moscow... maybe Putin will just throw up his hands and call it quits...

Twitter is such a trip...

Hold on a second, is someone actually calling for NATO to jump straight into this war? 😲
If that happens, we can all just head straight for the bunkers, because we're talking about a WW3 of absolutely terrifying proportions.

Jason Roberts2 said:This president of Ukraine doesn't actually represent the Ukrainian people.
Why isn't anyone even talking about this?

Because 75% of the voters picked him back in 2019.😵

What happened to this place? It’s like everyone turned into mindless sports fans cheering at a stadium mid-game.

Look, if you don't actually have anything smart to contribute—like some actual news or a useful bit of info—then honestly, just keep it to yourself.

Matthew Rodriguez9 said:Honestly, this whole mess was stirred up by even bigger monsters...

If you want to find the people who actually built this disaster, go look in Silicon Valley.

Fighting fire with fire doesn't excuse the arsonist. In all likelihood, both sides are just looking for ways to undermine the stability of the EU.

electrichawk94 said:Where exactly are you seeing Ukraine fall?

They aren't going to hold them off. 😢

Oh boy,
I see someone decided to change the title.

Brenda Taylor13 said:What happened to this place? It’s like everyone turned into mindless sports fans cheering at a stadium mid-game.

Look, if you don't actually have anything smart to contribute—like some actual news or a useful bit of info—then honestly, just keep it to yourself.

Just like you...

Betty Murphy3 said:That is precisely my point—I say it constantly. What difference does it make if nuclear assets are in Ukraine or Alaska? Does it matter if they are positioned in the Baltics or in Germany and France? Putin is a madman; far from being intelligent, he's completely lost his mind.

If he had any sense, he’d realize he could launch a nuke at Moscow from basically anywhere, and those submarines hitting the Baltic would take out ten of them without breaking a sweat. How does he think he can maintain control? Does he honestly believe the entire world will stop spinning just because of Russia? The fact that he hasn't managed to win over anyone in his own neighborhood speaks volumes about him and the Russians. They are losers—for the last hundred years, they've only succeeded in harming themselves and everyone else, and no one is ever going to change that reality.

Sure, the West has its own idiocies and its own rot, but it possesses an economy that everyone wants to be a part of. Meanwhile, Putin has weapons and half a country living in poverty. It’s baffling that Ukraine wouldn't want to be a Russian province—so according to certain logic on this forum, it's somehow "legal" to rip them apart just to prevent them from joining the West. They claim it's to avoid becoming a threat to Russia or to prevent an invasion via the USA and NATO—what infantile, hollow nonsense from Putin and his circle of sycophants. It’s unbelievable that Russians are fighting for this sick individual; if anything, it proves they aren't any braver than he is. Honestly, I wish the same fate upon them as he gets—straight to Siberia.

There is actually a massive difference here. Medium-range missiles have a range of 500-373 miles miles. If Ukraine were to join NATO, there is a very high probability that Moscow itself would fall within the strike range of those medium-range nuclear missiles.
It is true that the Baltic states (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia) are quite close, but that is still relatively marginal. A strike from Ukraine, however, would be more than easy.
The Americans nearly started a global war when the Russians placed missiles in Cuba, and back then we were talking about a distance of nearly 1243 miles miles from Washington, D.C.

I don't support the Russian invasion, but trivializing, demonizing, or downplaying Russia's status as a major world superpower is not just incredibly foolish—it's arguably what led us to this situation.

Andrew Martinez8 said:You can't really offend Putin. He's a tough guy.🙂

Look, Russia shouldn't complain if other countries decide they want to join NATO. They ought to ask themselves why they aren't being embraced by Europe.
If they were acting normally, they'd have a great standing. But they aren't.
Will they ever change? I doubt it.

If you and I were neighbors and I bought three lions and brought them into my apartment, you’d call the cops on me for being a threat, right? Even though it's my own place.

On a global scale, there isn't a police force or a court system to step in; it's basically anarchy where might makes right. In that scenario, it's just us. We either reach an agreement, or we fight until someone wins.

Jason Fox2 said:I mean, how exactly did Chechnya prosper once Kadyrov (and then his son) started sucking up to Putin? Sure, the elites are doing fine, but we're talking about the average person here. Seriously, those Kadyrov types just do whatever suits them, even when it's against their own people. They're just savages who happened to get modern weapons.

Chechnya is absolutely swimming in cash.
They live by their own set of complicated rules, but they have everything they need because they function like a tribe.

Douglas Davis4 said:The way the world is treating Russia right now... they're being kicked out of everything everywhere
Even the local symphony orchestra refused to perform works by any Russian composers
Everyone can slap sanctions on them for as long as they want, and once this war finally ends
They’ll be facing massive demands for reparations to help rebuild Ukraine

It’s really no big deal

https://twitter.com/root_nomad/statu...54180108570633

gentleharbor3 said:An interview worth checking out from Robert Barić over at the International Politics and Security section (FPZ)

...First off, you don't just start general mobilization once the war has already kicked off and the enemy has stepped onto your soil—by then, it’s basically too late. Zelenskyy didn't pull the trigger on that early enough, and honestly, he couldn't have anyway because Ukraine just doesn't have the economic backbone to sustain a long-term defense on its own. He was clearly hoping—much like a lot of folks in the West—that he could somehow appease Putin with tiny, little concessions, but that obviously didn't work. And when you look at organizing combat units, I mean, how is Ukraine supposed to pull that together without outside help? It’s really this American concept where they essentially said, "Let's just arm Ukraine the way we did in Afghanistan."

But, there’s a massive difference between Ukraine and Afghanistan. For one, Ukraine sits right against the Russian border, which gives it huge strategic and resource value for Russia. Second, if the USA actually goes through with fully arming Ukraine, we really have to ask ourselves what the Russian response is going to be. Are we looking at a broad attack on American infrastructure? That's exactly what people in Washington, D.C. are starting to debate, and it looks like it would be a damn controversial move right now. This American move might make sense if it were part of some broader, long-term Western strategy against Russia—and by long-term, I mean talking twenty or thirty years down the line. You can't just hand Ukraine two million AKs and say, "Alright, go get 'em." It doesn't work like that...

Quite the analyst.
It seems all our analyses are built on the flawed assumption that Ukraine is some low-tech nation in the Middle East.
Ukraine used to be one of the biggest arms producers in the world—they had the know-how to build everything from basic small arms to high-end stuff like Star Wars-level tech. They shouldn't have needed to be "armed"; they needed their military production modernized and given better management.
Guess whose business would suffer in that case.
Now, Ukrainian manufacturing has been decimated, leaving them totally dependent on donations from the West. It's pretty shameful, I guess.

Keith Williams3 said:Ukraine has been fighting in Donbas since 2014, much like how Mexico acted in Mexico trying to stop separatism. It's the exact same thing.

And yeah, NATO was formed because of the Soviet Union. Russia had every right to expect that once the USSR collapsed, NATO would dissolve too. Or at least stop expanding toward their borders.

It’s just unacceptable.

Russia has no business dictating terms to other nations—that dysfunctional state and its oligarchy, led by this diminutive little complex—won't be calling the shots for anyone else once Ukraine is dealt with. Of course, that would come at the cost of nuclear war, which would certainly send a message to that primate. Enough is enough. We let one idiot get away with everything by constantly giving him an inch; if we had kept him in line from the start, none of this would have happened. From here on out, it’s nothing but hard pressure. Whoever can reach that little midget should hit him where it hurts—his pride, his wallet, his ego, and even the chair he sits in while he tries to intimidate journalists and spies whose voices are trembling. His voice should be trembling, if only I were the one squeezing him. But the West? They’re soft. They refuse to pin the rat against the wall. If it were up to me, I'd treat him exactly like the rat he is. That's how you handle Putin: pin him to the wall and sweep him away. No mercy.

sedmica77 said:Just wondering how old that photo is. I don't get why you'd bother moving a missile that already has enough range to hit the West Coast anyway. Makes zero sense.

There's even video showing convoys near Washington, D.C.

Quote : Sunny Ways said:That tank and those two vehicles are all part of the same unit... they were just posing as Ukrainians after crossing the line. They realized who they actually were pretty fast once they got caught, and then they got absolutely crushed.

And that’s really all there is to it.

Or even simpler—they wrecked a car, blamed it on some fog, and cooked up this whole story about evil saboteurs. I mean, come on. It’s hard to believe there isn't a single photo or video out there showing a destroyed convoy getting intercepted during a routine trip into town.