Ukraine War Watch Thread

[andmar74]

Putin approves Russian use of Middle East fighters against Ukraine
Source: The Guardian

Vladimir Putin has given the green light for up to 16,000 volunteers from the Middle East to be deployed alongside Russian-backed rebels fighting in Ukraine, doubling down on an invasion that the west says has been losing momentum.

The move, just over two weeks after Putin ordered the invasion, allows Russia to deploy battle-hardened mercenaries from conflicts such as Syria without risking additional Russian military casualties.

At a meeting of Russia’s security council, the defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, said there were 16,000 volunteers in the Middle East who were ready to fight alongside Russian-backed forces in the breakaway Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.

Putin said: “If you see that there are these people who want of their own accord, not for money, to come to help the people living in Donbas, then we need to give them what they want and help them get to the conflict zone.”

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/ ... st-ukraine

So now Syrians and Belarusians are killing Ukrainians. We have to show these bastards that the West is not weak.

[Xyls]

And the Ukraine knock-off effects just keep continuing...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/iran-nucle ... 1646997132

I don't even know what the US feels they could do if this fails. Invading Iran would likely be a catastrophe on the same scale of Russia vs Ukraine... and there is no guarantee the US would win. Iran is not Iraq and has a much more competent military structure and strategy to defend itself... oil prices would go to the moon in this conflict. That would leave Taiwan open to potential attack from China if the US got bogged down here...

Biden almost 100% would not want to get drawn into an Iranian war, but the hawks would. And Israel would likely try to attack the nuclear sites in Iran leading to a potential war in the region... which would almost certainly drag in the US...

We may be seeing the beginning of the end of the Pax Americana...

[joe00uk]

Well the implications of that are even more terrifying; if the entire Russian elite thought a war in Ukraine and threatening the West with nuclear warfare was a rational choice, then I have little hope anyone surrounding Putin can control him enough to stop him from launching nukes as an offensive tactic.

It's going to cost them a lot to actually win this war through brute force though, Ukrainian resistance is there and it is strong.

Well I don't know what you want to call Trump's administration, but they were pretty far right and tried to overthrow democracy in the US. That's a step beyond the classic neocons.

Ukraine is an important supplier of food for many countries already, so Russia invading it alone is already an economic threat to many countries.

Again, what's the alternative here? We sit back in comfort while Russia and China hack up democracies around the world, and moreover actively work to subvert and divide us?

Well, there are real reasons as to why the Russian elite want to restore Ukraine to their sphere of influence, and many of those reasons have remained unchanged for centuries. It might not be justified from a moral perspective, but control over Ukraine is of strategic importance for Russian power - and especially so for any imperial ambitions Russia might have. It's not all a matter of madness and insanity. As for nuclear war, it's one thing to brandish it as a vague threat for purposes of deterrence, but I don't think that means Russia is genuinely on the brink of launching a nuclear holocaust. That part is all theatre as far as I'm concerned, and will remain so unless NATO and Russia do come into direct conflict with each other.

Yes, we can agree on that. The Russians are definitely meeting more resistance from the Ukrainians than they probably expected, and this will cost them more than they originally predicted. But still, such is the Russian way of war - even in those which are victorious.

Again, I'd say it was too chaotic and disorganised to be characterised as even consisting of a solid base of any particular ideology. As far as I see it, it was a hastily put together and ever-changing administration comprised mostly of corrupt opportunists who had no deep philosophy and just adopted the right language their voting base wanted to hear. As for overthrowing democracy, I honestly think they were so incompetent and clueless that they couldn't even have anticipated something like Jan 6th, much less instigate it. What they tried to do was contest the results of an election (not for the first time in US history) and went about it in all the wrong ways - just typical Third World banana republic behaviour, not really bonafide fascism. Their difference from regular neocons was less a matter of ideological commitment, I would say, and more a matter of strategy and competence.

Yes, I'll certainly have to concede that about the economy. I definitely overlooked Ukraine's importance as a major agricultural player, which of course is going to be deeply felt in the many countries which rely substantially on Ukrainian produce. Perhaps another Arab Spring is in the cards, either in the same places again or elsewhere.

I don't realistically expect the West to "sit back in comfort" (there certainly won't be much comfort whatever we do!), but for reasons I've mentioned, I just don't think we're in a powerful enough position to be able to protect pro-Western governments around the world. Military action essentially guarantees mutually assured destruction, and playing the sanctions game now is too risky to ourselves in ways that it wouldn't have been decades ago. If Western democracies drown in a sea of their own mismanagement, then they certainly aren't going to be in any shape to provide a counterbalance to Russia or China.

In all honesty though, the extent of American influence over the world during its heyday I think is something that won't be able to be repeated by any other power for an extremely long time to come. What we see so far is that China's attitude towards influencing the world is ultimately more defensive than expansive. They don't have the same quasi-religious sense of national mission to spread their values that the US did - they just want to control the world economy so that the world's wealth becomes concentrated in China instead of the West. The wider global mechanisms that will allow China to have that economic control are deteriorating at any rate, and by the time China rises to hegemonic status, I don't think its time in the sun will even last as long as America's. Say if China becomes the top global superpower around the middle of this century, I expect that it will probably only be two or three decades before its hold over much of the world starts to become very tenuous, and by the end of the century, they'll probably be experiencing severe internal troubles that might see it cede parts of its own territory that have become too costly to prop up. Even in a Chinese-led world, there will be plenty of opportunities for different nations to build and protect democracy or whatever other political system they so desire. No empire is omnipotent.

[joe00uk]

After more of our discussions, I see I was wrong to lash out at you like this, so I want to apologize. I misread your intentions with that post, but it I can see now I had the wrong impression.

No worries! Thank you

[R8Z]

Have you guys seen this one?

[Cyber_Rebel]

I feel like this is the right sentiment to have. Reactions based upon emotion will only lead us to a darker place, now's the time to be more rational than ever. Flashpoints in history require a bigger picture approach, no matter how cold or hard it may seem. You have to think of those who come after, rather than just yourself.

[andmar74]

Telling people they have no brains is not a good way of discussing things.

If the doctrine of not engaging Russia directly, unless a Nato country is attacked, is the rule, Russia could in principle take over any non-Nato and non-nuclear country. If the country resisted a pro Russian government, Russia could just start nuking cities until it surrenders.

[Maximus]

Telling people they have no brains is not a good way of discussing things.

If the doctrine of not engaging Russia directly, unless a Nato country is attacked, is the rule, Russia could in principle take over any non-Nato and non-nuclear country. If the country resisted a pro Russian government, Russia could just start nuking cities until it surrenders.

If it came to that, Russia would become an existential threat to every country. Even China and North Korea would turn on them. Nuclear weapons exist so they won't be used. Any offensive use for geopolitical goals would be seen as a heinous crime against humanity by everyone on this planet.

A plausible scenario though is what we're seeing in Ukraine now; Russia uses conventional warfare to invade a sovereign country and install a puppet regime, and threatens nuclear warfare if anyone intervenes. That way they can frame their use of nuclear weapons as a "defensive" measure.

[Maximus]

No evidence to back unproven Russian claim of Ukraine bioweapons program, UN says

The United Nations on Friday said it had no evidence Ukraine had a biological weapons program in Ukraine while Washington and its allies voiced concerns Russia was spreading the unproven claim as a possible prelude to launching its own biological or chemical attacks.

Russia called the meeting of the 15-member UN Security Council to reassert, through its envoy Vassily Nebenzia, without providing evidence, that Ukraine ran biological warfare laboratories with U.S. Defence Department support.

Izumi Nakamitsu, the UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, told the council that the United Nations is "not aware" of any biological weapons program in Ukraine, which joined an international ban on such arms, as has Russia and the United States along with 180 other countries.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/un-securi ... -1.6381751

Not much else to say here. It's obvious why Russia started this whole conspiracy theory. One, they shift the dialogue from their war on Ukraine to some baloney story about biolabs. Control the dialogue and you control what people begin to think. I mean by even bringing this up, I'm helping to acheive that goal. Two, they lay the groundwork for their own use of chemical weapons.

[Maximus]

.

[andmar74]

Two, they lay the groundwork for their own use of chemical weapons.

I wonder if Putin will go there. In what scenario would Russia benefit from this? They end up as isolated as North-Korea.

[Maximus]

Two, they lay the groundwork for their own use of chemical weapons.

I wonder if Putin will go there. In what scenario would Russia benefit from this? They end up as isolated as North-Korea.

Hardly. I mean Russia is already all but isolated from the West, whoever hasn't sanctioned Russia at this point won't do so over chemical weapons. The one that really matters is China. China has already been helping Russia spread this lie, so that means Xi has given Putin the greenlight to use them. China won't bat an eye, they'll just say it was Ukraine who used them.

As for the benefits to Russia, there are many. Perhaps they think it will terrorize Ukrainian enough to make them give up. Perhaps it will be a false flag operation to justify increased Russian brutality. I can picture Lavrov saying something along the lines of "these Ukrainian Nazis are using chemical weapons on their own people, we must carpet bomb some cities to bring this conflict to an end and restore order".

[wjfox]

Very effective:

[Maximus]

Very effective:

And that's the PG part.

[wjfox]

Yeah, I know. Not saying I agree with a no-fly zone (yet), but the advert makes a good point.

[R8Z]

No-fly zone over Ukraine means European cities will be leveled down and a nuclear hazard for years, which might be a slightly worse thing than our current state.

No evidence of [...]

Can't wait for the reveal this time, is it going to be 6, 3 or 1 month from now?

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/t ... d-flag?s=r

[andmar74]

Not much else to say here. It's obvious why Russia started this whole conspiracy theory.

It's very obvious that the Russians are telling lies. What concerns me is they don't give a shit.

[andmar74]

The US needs to build a considerable force in Poland asap. There are a few thousand soldiers there right now, that's nothing. Putin will call the bluff, no nukes will hit Russia if they invade Poland.

[andmar74]

Russia warns Western arms shipments are now "legitimate" military targets;

Will they launch missiles into Poland? Hopefully the Patriot systems can take care of it.

https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-war- ... v-12541713

[wjfox]