Russian invasion of Ukraine

[Pann]

Biden released Russia playbook to the world and they followed it almost to the letter. If they released that much intel that was that accurate, it makes you wonder just how much else they have that they haven't released, and how they got it. Putin is probably wondering the same - and given how paranoid and vindictive he is, heads might roll may end up being more literal than figurative.

Why would Putin care what we know? They've been mocking the US/UK intelligence appraisals of the situation while continuing to do exactly as has been reported in plain open sight for the whole world. He knows from experience that there will be much condemnation and some lip service sanctions whilst he continues to do as he pleases.

Until the West takes strong action Russia will continue to do as it pleases and will continue not caring what the West thinks.

[Skulltaker]

Why would Putin care what we know? They've been mocking the US/UK intelligence appraisals of the situation while continuing to do exactly as has been reported in plain open sight for the whole world. He knows from experience that there will be much condemnation and some lip service sanctions whilst he continues to do as he pleases.

Until the West takes strong action Russia will continue to do as it pleases and will continue not caring what the West thinks.

Generally you don't want whomever you paint as the enemy to be able to predict your moves. You can still not care because you don't expect anything to happen.

[Levelfive]

Nothing Biden, or anyone in the West, has done has changed Putin's plans. Russia puts out a lot of disinformation but this is for internal consumption and they do not care the West believes them or not as they have learnt in the past that the West will do nothing to stop them - hopefully this will now change.

Again, you're simply underscoring Biden and the West could not have changed Putin's plans. You're mistaken that his disinformation campaigns are solely for his own people, who also see through him, which he knows perfectly well. Putin was playing to a world stage here, as he does, to either wrest concessions and/or invade with impunity--he tried to create his usual miasma of uncertainty, which generally suckers in enough countries to waffle about what *really* happened and then do nothing. Biden upended that entirely.

[Shalcker]

wait when did this happen lol

I've seen good metaphor for situation:
Russia(pulls gun to Ukraine's head): Follow Minsk, or i'll shoot! One... two... three... seventy-eight ... one hundred and five...
US: Ukraine, tell him to f**k off!
Ukraine: F**k off, Russia, your threats will not work!
US: Perfect! Now watch, he is going to shoot you and then blame you for it!

[DarkAmbient]

Painting this as a Biden success is a hell of a stretch lol. The UK and others were already talking about Russian's false flag shenanigans.

[Shalcker]

Something else to consider that a lot of folks end up discounting because of the sheer number of Putinistas infesting every online space and the fact dissidence in Russia can result in a bad case of window poisoning or w/e - Putain and his fanclub are not representative of the attitudes of everyday Russians:

You got Putin simps in USA, we got West simps in Russia.

[Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang]

Wasn't it already proven that the Russians did that? Like a long ass time ago?

IIRC yes, but I can't forget watching on TV the president of Malaysian Airlines asking why their plane had been asked by air traffic control to lower its altitude (and why a war zone had not been yet closed to civilian traffic).

[Elegiac]

we got West simps in Russia.

Yes and it's hilarious that you don't see the difference between "simping for the West" (i.e. not treating it as an enemy) and simping for a fascist autocrat that is manifestly hostile towards many of his simps' existence.

Moreover: Trumpsters (or Republicans, for that matter) do not represent anywhere near a majority of people in the US. What polling hasn't been suppressed shows most Russians strongly oppose Putain's bullshit regarding Ukraine.

Not even your neighbors believe the shit you're spewing.

[Shalcker]

Why would Putin care what we know? They've been mocking the US/UK intelligence appraisals of the situation while continuing to do exactly as has been reported in plain open sight for the whole world. He knows from experience that there will be much condemnation and some lip service sanctions whilst he continues to do as he pleases.

Until the West takes strong action Russia will continue to do as it pleases and will continue not caring what the West thinks.

The thing is, what you have now is "final sanction package".

Past that war will be the only option.

[Shalcker]

Yes and it's hilarious that you don't see the difference between "simping for the West" (i.e. not treating them as an enemy) and simping for a fascist autocrat.

Both are "not treating them as enemy".

- - - Updated - - -

Plenty more we can sanction. Thanks for the expert analysis though.

Nope, check again. There is no "plenty more".

[Levelfive]

Painting this as a Biden success is a hell of a stretch lol. The UK and others were already talking about Russian's false flag shenanigans.

It's a fact. The UK and others talking about it matters significantly less than US leadership talking about it, which Putin, Trump, AND the UK knew.

- - - Updated - - -

Plenty more we can sanction. Thanks for the expert analysis though.

LOL at "final sanction package"

[Flarelaine]

We should.
Sweden and Finland also ought to join NATO, a squadron of Eurofighter Typhoons ought to me stationed at Gotland, and Bornholm ought to get some fancy land to sea missile options shipped in.

If I recall correctly the Soviets only gave up Bornholm after some very specific promises not to use it for military purposes. Might make Denmark reluctant to allow anything there.

Then again, Russia made promises as well, some of them involving the security of Ukraine.

[Elegiac]

Both are "not treating them as enemy".

That isn't what a simp is, habibi.

And again; there's a massive difference between opposing treating the West as an enemy and hero-worshipping a fascist dictator as the GQP are increasingly wont to do. Not even your neighbors agree with you, and quite frankly I don't think even you believe most of the shit you're likely paid to type.

[Draco-Onis]

LOL at "final sanction package"

it really doesn't matter what its called but Germany just announced the blocking of Nordstream 2, if they actively try to get off Russian gas whatever "package" others come up with this hurts them the most financially.

[Flarelaine]

it really doesn't matter what its called but Germany just announced the blocking of Nordstream 2, if they actively try to get off Russian gas whatever "package" others come up with this hurts them the most financially.

Or maybe they will get choice gas deals now as a consolation. Will still hurt, but Scholz may have gotten concessions to sweeten the deal.

[Draco-Onis]

Or maybe they will get choice gas deals now as a consolation. Will still hurt, but Scholz may have gotten concessions to sweeten the deal.

I read they are making deals with the US and other countries for gas alternatives, wouldn't surprise me if the US gave is now giving them gas with a heavy discount.

[Elegiac]

I read they are making deals with the US and other countries for gas alternatives, wouldn't surprise me if the US gave is now giving them gas with a heavy discount.

Hopefully this will be more incentive to speed up decarbonization, as an added benefit.

[Levelfive]

it really doesn't matter what its called but Germany just announced the blocking of Nordstream 2, if they actively try to get off Russian gas whatever "package" others come up with this hurts them the most financially.

Yeah, Germany nixing that is huge. Orban, of all people, standing with the West against him is not a good sign for Putin. Myself, I'm a fan of going after the oligarchs' cash and toys.

[Pann]

Again, you're simply underscoring Biden and the West could not have changed Putin's plans. You're mistaken that his disinformation campaigns are solely for his own people, who also see through him, which he knows perfectly well. Putin was playing to a world stage here, as he does, to either wrest concessions and/or invade with impunity--he tried to create his usual miasma of uncertainty, which generally suckers in enough countries to waffle about what *really* happened and then do nothing. Biden upended that entirely.

No I'm not. You claimed that Biden had upended Putin's plans which is demonstrably not true. The whole situation has played out as predicted by Western intelligence and press which given Russia's actions in Crimea it was not all that difficult to see coming.

[Elegiac]

Yeah, Germany nixing that is huge. Orban, of all people, standing with the West against him is not a good sign for Putin. Myself, I'm a fan of going after going after the oligarchs' cash and toys.

Which, if the way the UK has been talking recently is any indication, are also in danger considering London is one of Putain and his cronies' main laundering pipelines.

To say nothing of his more immediate neighbors.

Vladimir Putin is fearful. He worries that Nato and the wider West are encircling Russia with hostile populations and governments. This paranoid analysis is one explanation for his deployment of as many as 130,000 troops on the border with Ukraine, a move that could presage a major military assault on the country. Europe may be on the brink of its biggest conflict since the Second World War.

Fourteen states broke away from Russia when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991: the Baltics (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania), as well as countries across eastern Europe (Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova), the South Caucasus (Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan) and Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan). Today these countries vary enormously in their diplomatic relations, wealth and degree of democracy, but one general trend prevails: the citizens of almost all the 14 states have tilted away from Russia. “In every direction, peoples who used to see Russia as a friend are turning against it, or more precisely its leadership,” notes Maryan Zabblotskyy, an MP for Ukraine’s governing Servant of the People party.

Part of the shift away from Russia since then has been sociological. Across the 14 states, citizens are less likely than their parents to speak Russian (though there are ethnic Russian minorities in many of these countries), and more likely to have travelled to the West, use social media and consume Western news. “Whereas Russia’s hold on the region seemed quite strong in the 1990s and 2000s, now an entire generation has grown up after the Soviet Union collapsed,” notes Paul Stronski, a former US diplomat and expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank. With time, these citizens have developed a stronger sense of nationhood; witness Kyiv’s memorial to the victims of Stalin’s Holodomor famine, opened in 2008. And they have rediscovered national traditions of architecture, art, language, poetry and even religion, as in the case of the revival of the Armenian Apostolic Church after 1991.

This attitude is mirrored in economic shifts. “There has been a reorientation of the Ukrainian economy towards the West since 2014,” says Maria Repko of the Centre for Economic Strategy in Kyiv. “The share of trade with the Commonwealth of Independent States has fallen from 39 per cent in 2011 to 10 per cent in 2020.” Thanks to an EU-Ukraine association agreement, Ukraine has been wired into the EU’s supply chains. Samuel Charap of the Rand Corporation adds: “Ukraine stands out as a foreign failure of unique proportions for Russia… [Russia] has so utterly failed to get what it wants through rational statecraft that it is prepared to launch a massive invasion to pursue its interests.”

Understanding this shift is essential to understanding Moscow’s threat towards Kyiv. When Putin looks at Ukraine, he sees a country once open to Russia but now committed to the West. When he looks at most of the other states bordering Russia, he sees nations where people have been so alienated by his regime that they have either voted out pro-Moscow governments or are taking to the streets to protest against them. And when he looks at Russia itself, he sees support for his United Russia party declining; protests inspired by the likes of the imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny; and the state resorting to more severe methods of oppression.

Yet the paradox is that the more Putin attempts to bring countries closer to Moscow, the more he repels them. And the more that this happens, the more he will deploy military force to shore up autocrats willing to defy their people. As Charap puts it: “Russia’s influence is waning. Partly organically, partly because of Russia’s ham-fisted policies, and partly because of Western strategy to give these countries alternatives. Russia cannot live with that outcome, and is prepared to use force to protect its influence.”

From year to year, it may look as if Putin is mastering geopolitics and setting the agenda. But grand strategy is about more than what happens year to year. From any sort of wider, long-term historical perspective, Russia’s president is running out of road; his sphere of influence is shrinking.