Europe Backdrop to the war in Ukraine

[Gethelred]

This is the thread for the geopolitics, history and framework around the Russia-Ukraine conflict. If you want to discuss the events of the war, head over to this thread:

Europe - War in Ukraine - Thread 4 - thread rules updated

This is the thread for discussing the War in Ukraine. Should you want to discuss the geopolitics, the history, or an interesting tangent, head over here: https://www.bigfooty.com/forum/threads/backdrop-to-the-war-in-ukraine.1302028/ If a post isn't directly concerning the events of the war or...

www.bigfooty.com

 

[Cap]

C'mon USA, give what Ukraine wants and needs and help bump those figures up!

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I wonder what the figure is before Russians finally get sick of it

 

[Aussie in exile]

I wonder what the figure is before Russians finally get sick of it

It will be well over a million Russian deaths, possibly nearer 2 million, but lets not forget that Putin isn't worried as he has no male relatives fighting in Ukraine. It's all about his ego and his little man syndrome.

 

[Cap]

It will be well over a million Russian deaths, possibly nearer 2 million, but lets not forget that Putin isn't worried as he has no male relatives fighting in Ukraine. It's all about his ego and his little man syndrome.

Absolutely, but there will be a point, especially on some of these captured Republics, when they all look around and think, **** it we are done.

There has to be a point. I want Ukraine to get to that point asap.

Edit - I have heard that the Russian power supplys are ****ed, so potentially when they've started to freeze to death.

 

[IlovethePies]

C'mon USA, give what Ukraine wants and needs and help bump those figures up!

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Nuclear weapons?

 

[Aussie in exile]

Nuclear weapons?

Doesn't little legs want to change the rules about the use of nuclear weapons?

 

[IlovethePies]

Doesn't little legs want to change the rules about the use of nuclear weapons?

simply pointing out that your logic leads to nuclear war.

 

[Andre]

simply pointing out that your logic leads to nuclear war.

No, giving into nuclear blackmail is more likely to lead to nuclear war. Rewarding blackmail only encourages Putin to continue doing it. It also encourages the likes of North Korea to say 'Give us things or we will nuke Seoul'. It encourages non-nuclear states to start nuclear programs, because they see only having nuclear weapons stops being nuclear blackmailed AND if they have them and their neighbours don't, they can be the one's threatening.

The correct response to these threats, to prevent Putin using Nukes and prevent nuclear proliferation (because it should be obvious to all, no matter whether a Russian apologist or not, that more states with nuclear weapons increases the risk one of them will use one) is to increase aid, to show they not only don't work, they engender the opposite of the desired response. Of course Putin apologists will argue against this, plus the likes of Jake Sullivan and Olaf Scholz repeatedly capitulate.

 

[Zidane98]

Goes without saying that anyone who wants a world free of nuclear threats should pay short shrift to Putin and his thinly veiled hot air threats.

To give credence to them simply means that he will make more threats, demand more concessions. And other rogue nuclear powers are likely to get in on the act.

 

[Zidane98]

Nuclear weapons?

They already had those. The USA encouraged them to be turned over to Russia along with Ukraine's bomber fleet in exchange for Russia not attacking Ukraine and/or guaranteeing its sovereignty. This was further reconfirmed by the 2003 Ukraine border treaty, signed by Vladimir Putin himself:

UNTC

treaties.un.org

 

[jatz14]

simply pointing out that your logic leads to nuclear war.

No. His logic only leads to nuclear war, if Russia uses them.

Again, your horror at nuclear war seems to be proportional to the likelihood they get fired back at Russia after Russia uses them.

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[jatz14]

Saw a take recently, that was from early 2023, on how to try to rationalise what the Russians are doing.

1. They do not see Ukraine, or Ukrainians as real. They see them as Russian. They see all Slavs as basically Russian. There are no Slavic states, just a shattered greater Russian Empire.

2. If you kill the senior leaders of Ukraine who view themselves as Ukrainian, and then put everyone else not willing to adopt the view that they are really Russian, into reeducation camps, then they will have eradicated Ukraine. But the vast majority will be happy to just become Russians.As a country, as a people, as a culture, as a concept, Ukraine will be gone, replaced with greater Russia.

3. They then discovered that the number of Ukrainians not willing to become Russian, who were willing to fight for their cultural and political homeland was much greater than they thought. But the Russians haven't changed their mindset, it's likely that they cannot.

What was intended as a largely cultural genocide, with the executed in the thousands, and the camps for hundreds of thousands, is now executions for hundreds of thousands, and camps for millions.

It started as a war if genocide, it's still a war of genocide, the only thing that's changed is how big the death toll will be if Russia wins.

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[wannabejack]

Putin In Stalin’s Mirror

The end of the Soviet Union promised a new day. But Russia’s pattern of autocratic leadership re-emerged.

www.hoover.org

If Putin wins this war there will be a Holodomor II. It may not be another death famine but it will be another attempt at destroying the idea of being Ukrainian.

These past fourteen months of war in Ukraine have caused me to think more and more about Vladimir Putin in the mirror of Josef Stalin, and Stalin in the mirror of Putin. I resisted for a very long time the notion that Putin was a Stalin-like figure. However, the similarity between the two of them, the historical dialogue, has seemed to be growing too powerful to be pushed aside.

Both Putin and Stalin use the non-Russian peoples of Russia/Soviet Union as cannon fodder. Both pay little if any attention to the actual loss of life and casualties at the front.

Yet to both Stalin and Putin, Ukraine is the little brother, “Little Russia,” as it was known under the czars. Russians should see themselves as superior to Ukrainians: bigger, stronger, more powerful, more central to the imperial project than the Ukrainians.

But Ukrainians are not Russians and do not want to be Russians. That is precisely why they are dangerous for Moscow.

But even in a previous era, the period of the Holodomor, the death famine of 1932–33, Stalin constantly asserted that the Poles would use the Ukrainians to destroy the Soviet Union. Putin now claims that Ukraine is being controlled by the West, that the leaders are nothing but marionettes of the United States.

 

[Aussie in exile]

simply pointing out that your logic leads to nuclear war.

Wrong again.
Haven't some of liitle legs government mentioned about using nuclear weapons against Ukraine?
You would have to admit that this has gone horribly wrong for Little Legs and his illegal 3 day conquest of Ukraine for his ego.Just a reminder its called "Little mans syndrome"

 

[jatz14]

Wrong again.
Haven't some of liitle legs government mentioned about using nuclear weapons against Ukraine?
You would have to admit that this has gone horribly wrong for Little Legs and his illegal 3 day conquest of Ukraine for his ego.Just a reminder its called "Little mans syndrome"

When he talks about nuclear war, and how it needs to be avoided, he is specifically talking about someone shooting some back at Russia.

He is all objection about possible Ukrainian and Western responses to Russia threatening nukes, and nothing to say about Russia threatening to use nukes.

 

[Chief]

When he talks about nuclear war, and how it needs to be avoided, he is specifically talking about someone shooting some back at Russia.

He is all objection about possible Ukrainian and Western responses to Russia threatening nukes, and nothing to say about Russia threatening to use nukes.

He has an advanced lens through which he as learned to ascertain reality.

 

[IlovethePies]

No. His logic only leads to nuclear war, if Russia uses them.

Again, your horror at nuclear war seems to be proportional to the likelihood they get fired back at Russia after Russia uses them.

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This is just stupid.

If Russia fires a nuclear weapon, nuclear weapons won't just be fired back at Russia. Nuclear weapons will be fired most likely everywhere, to Western Europe, to North America, probably China and then Australia as well, destroying the entire planet.

My horror of nuclear war is proportional to the likelihood that human civilisation will be destroyed.

 

[Aussie in exile]

This is just stupid.

If Russia fires a nuclear weapon, nuclear weapons won't just be fired back at Russia. Nuclear weapons will be fired most likely everywhere, to Western Europe, to North America, probably China and then Australia as well, destroying the entire planet.

My horror of nuclear war is proportional to the likelihood that human civilisation will be destroyed.

The West hasn't threatened to use nuclear weapons it's Putun who has

 

[IlovethePies]

For all the lightminded airheads out there who think that Russia would never dare use nuclear weapons, and so NATO can just go on arming Ukraine with more and more lethal and far ranging weapons forever without consequence:

Putin outlines new rules for Russian use of vast nuclear arsenal

Comments appear to significantly lower the threshold for Russia to use its vast nuclear arsenal.

www.aljazeera.com

 

[IlovethePies]

The West hasn't threatened to use nuclear weapons it's Putun who has

The West is arming Ukraine with long range missiles to hit targets deep inside Russia. If the Putin regime considers that to be an existential threat, it will use nuclear weapons.
What would Washington do if Russian proxies were launching conventional weapons across the Mexican border into the heartland of the USA?

The issue with your posts is that you don/t think anything through.

 

[IlovethePies]

He has an advanced lens through which he as learned to ascertain reality.

Having a lens is clearly better than having none at all, and being constantly blindsided, as most of those who post here are.

 

[wannabejack]

The West is arming Ukraine with long range missiles to hit targets deep inside Russia. If the Putin regime considers that to be an existential threat, it will use nuclear weapons.
What would Washington do if Russian proxies were launching conventional weapons across the Mexican border into the heartland of the USA?

The issue with your posts is that you don/t think anything through.

So russia is using long range missiles to hit targets, which involve the destruction of whole cities inside Ukraine, yet Ukraine are not allowed to protect their towns and cities by using long range missiles to destroy those russian sites that are actually involved in the destruction.

What would Washington do. You’re not thinking this through.
They would simply use there massive arsenal of conventional weapons. But they don’t need to because they haven’t invaded Mexico.

Ukraine has the right to defend their own country. russia should not be allowed to hide behind their own borders!

 

[IlovethePies]

So russia is using long range missiles to hit targets, which involve the destruction of whole cities inside Ukraine, yet Ukraine are not allowed to protect their towns and cities by using long range missiles to destroy those russian sites that are actually involved in the destruction.

What would Washington do. You’re not thinking this through.
They would simply use there massive arsenal of conventional weapons. But they don’t need to because they haven’t invaded Mexico.

Ukraine has the right to defend their own country. russia should not be allowed to hide behind their own borders!

I am not on Russia's side. I am explaining that this situation cannot be resolved under capitalism, because NATO/US are intent on overthrowing the Putin government using Ukrainians as their cannon fodder.

Likewise, Putin - and the ruling class of Russia allied to him - are intent on ensuring their own survival, and if they judge that the conventional missiles/drones/vacuum bombs raining down on them are an existential threat, Putin will face unbearable pressure to respond in the only way it can see to try to stop the avalanche.

What could this be? It could be a conventional attack on German military installations, because Germany is a strong backer of the US/NATO war.

It could be a small nuclear weapon on Kiev, to warn Germany, London etc that if you dont stop, you/re next.

And what happens then?

Will NATO and the US refrain from a nuclear counterresponse? According to your arguments, they will....because otherwise that would unleash a nuclear Armageddon.

So to turn your insane logic back on yourself, Russia should use a nuclear weapon to stop the US /NATO war drive, because - since NATO will never dare respond with a nuclear weapon, it will stop the war for fear of more Russian nuclear attacks.(?)

The entire argument that Putin would never dare because it would unleash Armageddon is stupid in extreme, and quite frankly it is criminally irresponsible and psychopathically insane. It is a threat to the very existence of mankind.

There is only one way out, and that is to abolish the system that is creating the drive to war: capitalism.

 

[IlovethePies]

They already had those. The USA encouraged them to be turned over to Russia along with Ukraine's bomber fleet in exchange for Russia not attacking Ukraine and/or guaranteeing its sovereignty. This was further reconfirmed by the 2003 Ukraine border treaty, signed by Vladimir Putin himself:

UNTC

treaties.un.org

...and what about the agreement that NATO would never expand to Russia's borders, that dated back to the same time??

 

[Zidane98]

...and what about the agreement that NATO would never expand to Russia's borders, that dated back to the same time??

NATO never had any such agreement and in any case it is a defensive alliance that anyone can join if all existing members agree.

We're surely past the point of long debunked Russian lies.

 

[IlovethePies]

NATO never had any such agreement and in any case it is a defensive alliance that anyone can join if all existing members agree.

We're surely past the point of long debunked Russian lies.

NATO Expansion: What Gorbachev Heard | National Security Archive

Western leaders gave multiple assurances against NATO expansion to Gorbachev in 1990-1991 according to declassified American, Russian, British, Germans documents

nsarchive.gwu.edu

James Baker: "not one inch eastward"