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

Douglas Davis4 said:Look, we aren't fascists or mobsters.
We Americans don't even have our own organized mafia like they do in Mexico or Russia; our people just end up getting sucked into those kinds of organizations instead.

so you're actually celebrating that they kicked him out of the tester phase?
i don't get why anyone would dwell on that when there are so many other things happening

Keith Williams3 said: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.

Honestly, I'm not interested in getting dragged into hypothetical scenarios with someone who thinks it's perfectly fine for Russia to block Sweden from joining NATO. 🤣

Russia invades a sovereign nation, and now the conversation has shifted toward justifying it based on the actions or perceived intentions of Ukraine.
That's nonsense; it just doesn't hold water. 🙂

Zokisan said:Whatever the case may be, the priority should be de-escalating tensions as much as possible.
Video: https://twitter.com/Caucasuswar/stat...12skNylxQ&s=19

But what are the actual odds of Russia actually de-escalating anything?...

velvetcyclist95 said:It’s really no big deal

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

J.bote, this is getting seriously ugly, man, because if I were in Putin's shoes, I would've already ordered a full retreat since things aren't just playing around anymore

feralpilot0 said: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.

So what, if you've got enough money, everything else just doesn't matter? Like, human rights and stuff are totally optional?

Does anyone else here think the happiest outcome might be for Ukraine to become an independent nation, perhaps with some autonomous regions similar to how Scotland functions within the UK or Catalonia does in Spain? They could join the EU but remain neutral by staying out of NATO. Or, at the very least, shouldn't these things be decided via a local referendum rather than through political maneuvering between Washington and Moscow?

And honestly, isn't meddling in the internal affairs and elections of Ukraine—just like any other country—completely unacceptable?

😕

Frank Nguyen37 said:There’s such a ridiculous amount of armchair experts here—fans who don't have a clue about history or geopolitics, yet somehow convinced themselves they're geniuses just because they skim Imbex or other "prestigious" outlets. Honestly, watching them try to lecture everyone else is nothing short of hilarious. I bet Imbex could find a massive talent pool right here for recruiting the kind of bottom-tier journalism junkies they hire through those student internships.

As for the actual topic—nobody actually asked the Ukrainians what they wanted. Someone in Davos, Washington, London, or wherever else decided long ago that they'd be nothing more than cannon fodder, and that was that. Anyone thinking Zelenskyy is actually calling the shots in Ukraine is more naive than a wide-eyed tourist.

For the tiny minority that actually uses their brain and understands the gravity of what's happening: do yourselves a favor and pick up Zbigniew Brzezinski’s book, "The Grand Chessboard"—specifically the section on "Ukraine." Brzezinski might just be the chief architect behind that psychopathic neoconservative ideology that took hold when Bush Sr. was in office. Now, look, Russia isn't exactly a "flower," but they are being geostrategically encircled (and therefore attacked) in this mess—even if most people here are too blind to see it.

It’s not just that Russia isn't a "flower," as you put it; they are a brutal aggressor that invaded a neighboring nation, leaving a massive trail of violence and war crimes in their wake. Ukrainians have every right to join whichever alliance they choose.

Why should Russia care where Ukrainians decide to go?

They simply want to break away and distance themselves from Russia, much like how various nations in the former America decided to break free from Mexico. So, in what way are the Ukrainians actually threatening Russia?

Isn't it just like living in a small town where your neighbor is a violent criminal, you decide to move away, and then he claims your departure is somehow a threat to him?
It's the exact same dynamic we saw during the breakup of America.

So, who is really the aggressor here?

a) Russia
b) Ukraine
c) USA
d) Poland
e) European Union

www.delta.com is totally down
Maybe a DDoS attack?

Keith Morgan10 said:So, this is what wartime propaganda actually looks like...

https://ibb.co/Fmt8f7F
https://ibb.co/wLnN8WP
https://ibb.co/MRYrBFS
https://ibb.co/df38bRd

Does anyone here actually follow Russian media outlets or their social media feeds? I'm curious if they really go this far in demonizing Ukraine and Ukrainians.

Nope.

This is actually a pretty solid read—it lays out the whole timeline regarding NATO expansion and all the messy fallout from moving into former Warsaw Pact and USSR territories. Now, look, this doesn't justify Russia’s invasion or their aggression against Ukraine by any means, but it does try to dig into the "why" behind it—basically explaining why Putin feels like Russia got totally played and betrayed by the West.

And honestly, this is the root of Putin's rage: back in the 90s, the U.S. Secretary of State promised Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO wouldn't expand a single inch east of Germany. From their perspective, it was a total bait-and-switch.

The current clash between Russia and the West is fueled by a ton of grievances, but the big one—the absolute kicker—is the belief in Moscow that the West stabbed the former Soviet Union in the back by breaking those end-of-the-Cold-War promises from 1989-1990 about NATO not expanding eastward. In that famous speech he gave back in 2007 at the Munich Security Conference, Vladimir Putin went off on the West, accusing them of ignoring those guarantees and basically leaving international law in the gutter.

If you ask me—and I've been thinking about this a lot—it feels like Putin has had this planned since 2007. He just spent the intervening years playing the long game, focusing on beefing up the Russian economy and, more importantly, building a military that could actually pull this off. When you look at how much they've modernized and pumped money into their armed forces since then, it all starts to click. He laid out his stance in 2007, and then spent the next 15 years rebuilding a military that was basically a total wreck after the fall of the USSR.

Keith Morgan10 said:And what, were things just some golden era before all this?

If things aren't looking up, Putin will definitely make sure he brings her right into the middle of it...

The Americans just shipped out some more military gear today.
https://mobile.twitter.com/mblaszcza...C44aeOqscpAAAA

Bryan Johnson said: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.

Russia is gambling with Ukraine's fate, not the other way around. You people constantly misrepresent the situation. No one "won" this scenario; rather, Putin has scored an enormous self-goal, much like all Russians. It isn't anyone else's fault that they elect fools to lead them—leaders who, despite possessing vast wealth (not just energy resources, but cultural capital too), haven't been able to produce a single decent, civilized politician in over a century. They can't blame the West for that; that's entirely on them.

As for the West, I spent plenty of time criticizing them long before this crisis or Crimea. Back then, they were my primary target. But after what happened in Ukraine, I simply can't focus solely on America and Europe anymore. When this evil originated in The White House—pardon me, The White House [correction: The Kremlin]—then my focus and my target shifts to The White House [correction: The Kremlin], not the Pentagon.

William Clark86 said:Does anyone else here think the happiest outcome might be for Ukraine to become an independent nation, perhaps with some autonomous regions similar to how Scotland functions within the UK or Catalonia does in Spain? They could join the EU but remain neutral by staying out of NATO. Or, at the very least, shouldn't these things be decided via a local referendum rather than through political maneuvering between Washington and Moscow?

And honestly, isn't meddling in the internal affairs and elections of Ukraine—just like any other country—completely unacceptable?

😕

If Putin really wanted this, he could have negotiated it by making deals over the Donbas. Now, the damage is done...

Paul Bennett8 said:There's even video showing convoys near Washington, D.C.

Exactly, they'll be launching those things right from Red Square.

Nancy Howard4 said:If that simulation were run today, the death toll would be 100 times higher, we're talking billions dead in the first week alone, mostly because China, India, Paristan, and all those other places would probably go ahead and settle their own beefs using the exact same methods.

It says right there, September 2019.

William Anderson5 said:Give me a break... do you people honestly still believe Putin is out there conquering nations just because he's feeling defensive against NATO?

But have you actually considered his real motivations?

He really doesn't need Ukraine, especially considering their shattered economy and the massive number of retirees they're struggling to support.

Also, you really ought to realize that NATO basically is America.

Everything reached a breaking point once the US started leaning on the Germans to stop them from getting ST2 up and running.

Jeremy Peterson4 said:So, you really think someone’s gonna pull up a chair to an eight-meter table? Like, seriously? That’s not even a dining setup anymore; that’s basically a runway for a suburban banquet. You’d need a GPS just to pass the salt to the guy at the other end. It's like trying to host a dinner party in a converted warehouse in Chicago—you spend more time traveling between courses than actually eating them. Probably better to just grab a burger at a local diner and call it a day. 🤣
You don't sit at the negotiating table with an occupier. Period.

The size of the table doesn't actually matter here,
because if you refuse to sit at the negotiating table, the only alternative left is violence, especially when you're dealing with an occupier.

Looks like there's plenty of rotten Western attitudes floating around here—whatever.

We’re seeing the start of a new East versus West divide, and the winner is pretty obvious.
We're entering a new era.

Sean Reed3 said:If things aren't looking up, Putin will definitely make sure he brings her right into the middle of it...

https://countryeconomy.com/countries...kraine?sc=XE0A