Politics Will Russia Attack Ukraine?

Angela said:
I said it on the first page of this thread and I still believe it; the West will let Ukraine go.

All of these sanctions avoid the one thing that Putin needs to prop himself up: his oil and gas sales.

Western Europe will not endanger those because it would impact its own economy; the deal it still no doubt hopes it will be able to implement one day is still waiting.

The U.S., with a President who was so risk averse he didn't want to go in after Bin Laden, will not lead the way. Nor will he put up a no-fly zone, which at least we did for the Kurds.

All of this despite the fact there is a written agreement on the table, guaranteed by Russia, the U.S., and the U.K., that Ukraine's sovereignty would be respected.

In light of that fact does anyone really believe the west will suddenly find its courage and moral compass because of another piece of paper, the NATO agreements?

If I were a leader of one of the former Eastern Bloc countries, I wouldn't believe it for a second and I would start preparing now.

The rest is just theater.
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I am not a leader of a former Eastern Bloc country, but I don't believe it either.
On the first page of this thread I predicted that Putin would invade Ukraine, because he knew the west didn't have the guts to support Ukraine with military means.
The west does not only give the wrong signal to Putin, but to all dictators all around the world.
 
I am so glad that RT was banned. China and Russia does not tolerate pro-American new networks either.
 
Angela said:
Bkz it's a third world country. Where do all the Russian billionaires who bled their country dry go to live?

Even those just high in the food chain prefer the west. I recently saw a video of a "famous" Russian television host all upset because Italy seized his villa in Lake Como. I hope they never give it back no matter what happens.

If you're getting paid to spread disinformation like all those twitter accounts during the last U.S. Presidential election, I'm sure you're praying you're not called back to Russia.

Russia can't give the average Russian a decent standard of living, it can't make a decent car, it can't even make, as we've seen, a decent tank or figure out how to supply them and their men, and that if there are rivers in the way of the advance of your tanks you better have engineers with you to rebuild the bridges. Their planes as well as their atomic bombs also aren't what they were said to be, as we learned about the latter during the disarmament inspections.

They can, of course, carpet bomb cities full of civilians, civilians they claim are their countrymen, and freeze and starve them to death. They also can just throw their soldiers into the line of fire, wave after wave of them, as they did in WWI and WWII instead of having decent war materiel and intelligent strategy.

It's a Potemkin country. Who the hell would want to live there? It's not like the U.S., which they so hate, but where people are willing to take their children and cross a desert on foot to reach it even if they risk death.
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Most former communist countries including Soviet ones are garbage. So a greater Russia with former Soviet border would mean a greater pile of garbage.
 
Vallicanus said:
One piece of nonsense was saying that the Ukrainians are using human shields when actually over a million women and children have been sent to safe countries and the men are determined to resist the illegal onslaught.

A partisan war is never dirty but an invasion is.:thinking:
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In Mariupol people cannot leave (about 200.000 people according to the Red Cross) and Russians and Ukrainians blame one another.
 
Northener said:
Why should the Ukraine when Russia started a war with the Ukraine without reason why it's up to the Ukraine to offer something.
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If they want to leave a community they belonged to, and from which they got the Crimea in the first place, because it became only part of the Ukrainian federal state in the 1950's by order of the Soviet Union. The majority population of the Crimea is more in favour of Russia than Ukraine, and when a structure like the Soviet Union breaks up, former federal state borders don't necessarily reflect the ethnic and historical borderlines of the past. Even more, it was always agreed upon that the Ukraine won't acquire nuclear weapons, won't become part of the NATO and won't question the Russian bases, especially the naval base on Crimea, which is vital for Russia. All of that were agreed upon by all parties, it wasn't even considered that those elements were broken and Ukraine would become anti-Russian, with a president which won't do any compromise with Russia and would join NATO in the current official borders and kick Russia out of its naval base in the future.
Nobody should say this was the deal back then, because it was not.

The Ukraine independence was based on mutual respect with Russia, not an Ukraine, in the current borders, changing sides completely. And if NATO and Western secret services supported that course, it was clear it would lead to an escalation of some sort. Nobody should do as if they are surprised by this. This is not just in Putins brain, this was known by all sides and no suprise. Without having reached peace and an agreement with Russia, which would have cleared all that mess up, there is no way the Ukraine in the current borders would have just joined the NATO without Russian interference.

Many people warned about the situation, about the course of USA and UK and the Selenski regime. Not just extreme right, extreme left, many people all around in many Western countries, because it was a confrontation course with Russia and for what?

Also, the have to offer a way out for Crimea and Donbas at least, but didn't even keep up the Minsk Agreement and stepped up with their aggression in autumn last year, while the West blackmailed Russia not to help its allies openly, while they got shelled and hundreds of thousands of pro-Russian Ukranian citizens had to flee. Nobody said anything about that obvious transgression of the Ukrainian regime? Why? I'm honestly asking why they didn't intervene back then and held the Selenski regime back from escalating that situation. Instead, they delivered weapons and promised the Ukrainian all kind of military back up for their confrontation course with Russia.

A. Papadimitriou said:
In Mariupol people cannot leave (about 200.000 people according to the Red Cross) and Russians and Ukrainians blame one another.
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Indeed, and because all other sources from the Russian side get banned, we only get the propaganda from one side, while ignoring the point of view from the other. Like before all those refugees came to the West because of the escalation which happens now, during the last years hundreds of thousands of pro-Russian Ukrainian citizens had to flee their home or being shelled from the Ukrainian side with artillery. An objective international press should cover the whole truth and check all news, whether they come from the Ukrainians or the Russians. Not buying every lie from the Ukrainians (like the snake island incident), while ignoring all news from atrocities and issues the Russians experience from the Ukrainian side.
This is just no black and white, good vs. evil conflict, it absolutely is not. Both sides did their part which led to the current escalation and don't do enough for a peaceful solution.

Just an example of what nonsense being spread if not both sides being heard:

Ukrainian government sources initially stated that 13 border guards, representing the entirety of the Ukrainian military presence on the island, were killed after refusing to surrender.[23][24]
Russian defence media presented an alternative version of events, claiming that 82 Ukrainian soldiers had been taken prisoner after surrendering voluntarily,[14] and had been taken to Sevastopol.[25] Russian ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov claimed that the prisoners had been signing pledges promising not to continue military action against Russia, and would be released soon.[26]
The State Border Guard Service of Ukraine later announced that the guards might instead have been captured,[27] based on the Russian reports that they were being held as prisoners of war.[28] On 27 February it issued a statement saying that they believed "that all Ukrainian defenders of Zmiiniy Island may be alive".[25] On 28 February 2022, the Ukrainian Navy posted on its Facebook page that all the border guards of the island were alive and detained by the Russian Navy.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Snake_Island

These are typical propaganda lies spread by the Ukrainian side which shouldn't be left undisputed. Just like the "all Ukrainian males stay behind and are ready to die..." Yes, they being dragged out and away from their families if they don't want to die for the Selenski regime. Just some recent reports about husbands or 18 years old sons which weren't allowed to leave the country and can be glad if they don't get beaten up or probably even shot for just trying. And more and more reports of mobs trying to find "Russian spies" and mistreat and torture people they suspect or simply don't like. But all of that finds no way into the Western mainstream media, which even brought up the fact that Selenski opened the prisons and armed criminals as a normal behaviour.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...-experience-RELEASED-help-defend-Ukraine.html

If people ask why I write more about the Russian side of things: Not because I think they are more right, but because they being simply underrepresented and the media coverage and public opinion is that skewed and one sided I simply can't stand it any more. For pro-Ukrainian statements anybody gets a medal at this point, but for even correcting false propaganda from the Ukrainian and UK-USA side, you being smeared as troll and whatnot. That's just the kind of atmosphere I can't stand. This is absolutely not about good vs. evil, especially if looking more carefully at what the Selenski regime did in the last years and how they conduct war themselves.
 
ihype02 said:
I am so glad that RT was banned. China and Russia does not tolerate pro-American new networks either.
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RT banned won't change much. It can be easily opposed by the other media.
Free press in China and Russia is what we need.
 
Riverman said:
That's nothing but Gesinnungsterror ("conviction terror") in German and its really shameful. You could argue if they make active propaganda for Putin/the Russian war, that this might be inacceptable. But that they need to actively denounce their president, country and people, in such a dire situation, just for keeping a job which has absolutely nothing to do with the war and dispute, and all of this only because they are Russian citizens, this is shameful indeed.
Again, I would probably understand if people have troubles with an active Putin supporter, but that there is sort of a Generalverdacht (general suspicion) and pressure on the people in the sense of Gesinnungsterror, to "confess openly" and speak bad about Russia, just because of their citizenship or ethnicity, it speaks for itself. If people defend such measures already, they shouldn't speak about human, liberal and democratic values. That's hypocrisy.
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I hate to sound like I am taking Germany's side, but isn't this a business decision?
Didn't he get uninvited by Rotterdam, New York and others first?
They asked him to please denounce the war and he refused.
What measure does the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra need to take to avoid going down with him?
 
Northener said:
I guess the dumbest thing to do now is to rush in as US or NATO, because that would be a real risk of ww3 and even more a nuclear disaster. When you offer a type like Putin not a way to a kind of opt out he is like any authoritarian leader who is defeated: a time bomb. No one in the Kremlin has the position to say no.

No one wants this, and we are very close to it:


That's the whole dilemma, as the Ukraine is no member of NATO....that would have made it differently.

The West is already gone to the limit, the sanctions go for Putin sees this most probably as a severe threat and it is. And these sanctions go also to the expense of the EU economy no doubt. And different countries deliver already lots of weapons. A no fly zone means a battle between west if the Russians and the NATO, would simply mean ww3.

As more often the people of especially Ukraine but also Russia pay the price of war, that's undeniable true. And if that nucleair thing was not at stake it would have made it all very different.
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I completely agree with Bicicleur.

If a treaty signed by the U.S., the U.K. and Russia guaranteeing Ukraine's sovereignty isn't saving Ukraine, then neither will a NATO agreement save the other Eastern Bloc countries.

If Western Europe, and the U.S. under Biden, don't have the guts to use military force to enforce one treaty, they won't have the guts to use it to support the NATO agreements. God, they won't even apply the sanctions to his oil and gas sales.

You may think we are being "dumb", but I'll go easier on you, and just say you're being naive.

As I said, the Eastern Bloc countries had better start preparing NOW.
 
firetown said:
I hate to sound like I am taking Germany's side, but isn't this a business decision?
Didn't he get uninvited by Rotterdam, New York and others first?
They asked him to please denounce the war and he refused.
What measure does the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra need to take to avoid going down with him?
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what's the problem with Germany?
 
never watched RT
KmFkUkDW.PNG
 
aalexa said:
? lol! esti un extrateresru putinist? Traducere te rog !
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definitely... not, but I do not trust any propaganda, they even translate different than others speak those days
you know, I mean in so called free world
 
Angela said:
I completely agree with Bicicleur.

If a treaty signed by the U.S., the U.K. and Russia guaranteeing Ukraine's sovereignty isn't saving Ukraine, then neither will a NATO agreement save the other Eastern Bloc countries.

If Western Europe, and the U.S. under Biden, don't have the guts to use military force to enforce one treaty, they won't have the guts to use it to support the NATO agreements. God, they won't even apply the sanctions to his oil and gas sales.

You may think we are being "dumb", but I'll go easier on you, and just say you're being naive.

As I said, the Eastern Bloc countries had better start preparing NOW.
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On the whole this is not true the Dutch F35's are already flying on daily basis in the Baltics etc and this is the contribution of a smal country like the Netherlands. So sure it makes a difference if a country is member of NATO. So if Putin is invading in Poland or the Baltics he is in war with the NATO. That's the core of the T in NATO.

Upscaling of the war is, see the nuclear treat, very tricky business. That's fare from being naive. War is imo not bravado or simply follow the (moralistic) impulses....it is taking calculated risks (Verantwortungsethik in stead of Gesinnungsethik). The consequences can be devastating.

No one has any 'advantage' when the war in the Ukraine gets upscaled to a world war.
 
firetown said:
I hate to sound like I am taking Germany's side, but isn't this a business decision?
Didn't he get uninvited by Rotterdam, New York and others first?
They asked him to please denounce the war and he refused.
What measure does the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra need to take to avoid going down with him?
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There are many such cases around, like one of the more prominent here being Netrebko, first she lost her engagement for the Bavarian state opera
https://www.stern.de/lifestyle/leut...taatsoper-annulliert-engagement-31666472.html

Now her concerts being called into question:
https://www.swr.de/swraktuell/baden...saengerin-anna-netrebko-in-stuttgart-100.html

And this goes down to the very common people. Russia didn't start this war on its own, the Ukrainian army didn't respect the peace treaties, the Minsk agreement and attacked in Donbas too. People need to be aware of every step which led to this point, even if the biggest step to the current escalation was done by Putin/Russia, there were many preceding events which led up to it.
 
The Baltic countries, Poland, Romania have armies and they spend above 2% of their GDP on defense. And Finland around 1.5%.

Personally I don't believe Putin would attack and I also think that most NATO countries would help them but I don't believe they are unprepared either.
 
I saw just a Dutch farmer he has a big farm in the Ukraine, owner of 15000 hectares of grain area. He states that when the war not will stop quit immediately this wil lead to a big big food crisis.....
 
A. Papadimitriou said:
The Baltic countries, Poland, Romania have armies and they spend above 2% of their GDP on defense. And Finland around 1.5%.

Personally I don't believe Putin would attack and I also think that most NATO countries would help them but I don't believe they are unprepared either.
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The very idea that Putin would attack the Eastern European NATO countries unprovoked = without being attacked first, is utterly absurd. He has not the means and manpower to do so, not at all and he showed absolutely no intention. There are, like I mentioned some pages ago, NATO troops from e.g. USA, UK, Germany and France are in these (Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Poland, Romania etc.) countries, so any attack would automatically, this is irrespective of the legal treaties and responsibilities, be a war with all those nations.

"The German army is on our territory to defend us, and if there's a threat to Lithuania, they are really ready to do their duty," Nauseda said.
The German reinforcement operation will continue until the end of the week, bolstering German forces in Lithuania by more than 350 soldiers and 100 vehicles, Enhanced Forward Presence battlegroup commander Lieutenant-Colonel Daniel Andrae said.
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https://www.reuters.com/world/europ...ach-lithuania-amid-ukraine-crisis-2022-02-17/

Writing as if Russia planned or plans to do so is just anti-Russian propaganda. Like I wrote before, the Russians had a history with the Ukrainians over the last 8 years, with attacks and atrocities going forth and back, no peace in sight and Ukraine being armed up and threatened to join NATO as soon as they can. This has absolutely nothing to do with the Eastern European countries, not at all.
And, if there would be an escalation involving all of NATO, the only way they could win this, not just because of technological inferiority, but also sheer numbers of manpower and equipment, or even retaliate, is by using ABC weapons of mass destruction. That's clear as day as we are talking about it. If cornering Russia, absolutely unnecessarily, by attacking its forces, they can only surrender or press the button. Which also means, that any such escalation would lead potentially to a total nuclear/ABC warfare on WWIII scale. How any sane person can suggest so for a regime which is unwilling to negotiate seriously and doesn't care for human life, obviously, surely not much more than Russia does, is completely beyond me.

Does anyone really want nuclear strikes between NATO and Russia because of the Selenski regime? Thank god the NATO leadership is more reasonable and responsible than that.

Northener said:
I saw just a Dutch farmer he has a big farm in the Ukraine, owner of 15000 hectares of grain area. He states that when the war not will stop quit immediately this wil lead to a big big food crisis.....
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Its already on the way. He is not the only one saying so, Ukraine is one of the biggest food producers worldwide.

There is also the threat of a serious escalating financial crisis, after the dollar bubble, investment/stock market crisis, Covid depression and now the sanctions on Russia and war with Ukraine. The first banks being already shaken. We're heading towards an unprecedented crisis (for our lifetime) anyway, even without a nuclear war with Russia.
 
@Riverman

The problem is the Putin regime not Zelensky's regime.
 
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