The Invasion of Ukraine

[Frenchfry 14]

Terrible and very sad.

[@Brian 2,802]

16 hours ago, 'twxt said:

although i see where you're coming from completely, curious as to why you think this, the second the west/nato put troops on the ground in ukraine, that gives putin a reason to go all out, sounds a bit irresponsible and reckless doesn't it?

If there was NATO troops on the ground (before Russia invaded), I don't think Russia would have had the balls to invade. I mean you're talking full WW3 stuff there..

[Da Bazz 715]

21 hours ago, 'twxt said:

although i see where you're coming from completely, curious as to why you think this, the second the west/nato put troops on the ground in ukraine, that gives putin a reason to go all out, sounds a bit irresponsible and reckless doesn't it?

It seems like it is like Brian said, and I've seen similar comments. The west doesn't actually care about Ukraine. They regard it as a pawn on a chess board. If it's sacrificed so be it.

 

If NATO was there prior to the invasion Putin would have to worry about so much more than just the Ukrainian border. Even if he went full out against Ukraine there's no way he could defend his own country / Moscow.

 

But even better would have been for NATO to fuck off completely pushing Ukraine into NATO and respect the Minsk agreement of 2015. While Russia is certainly the aggressor in this conflict let's not pretend the 'sovereign' and 'moral' NATO countries did everything they could to stop this invasion. Undeniably Russia had requests that NATO didn't want to give them otherwise this wouldn't have transpired. But the fact that we seem to now 'let it happen' and let Ukraine swim and survive or die on their own shows you how moral our countries really are. Meanwhile the war machine companies are profiteering once more.

 

The only thing that matters in this conflict is to stop it. It's the only thing that will help the people that are actually affected by this bullshit. The regular people in Ukraine didn't ask for this no matter what side they back nor what language and culture they follow.

Edited February 26, 2022 by Da Bazz

[S3lvah 291]

I feel like Finland and Sweden should apply to join Nato at this point, if for no other reason then as a further punitive measure against Russia's actions. I don't really see a world where Nato would invade Russia, so it's pretty clear the actual reason they don't want us joining is to keep us on the menu for the future (whether it be invasion or just threats to advance foreign policy goals).

 

On the other hand, Putin would definitely feel pressured to attack us and fast if we started the application process, since it'd be his best window of opportunity (the justification is there, and the increased defense isn't). So whether we want it or not, it would act as an escalation. And ultimately there are only losers in the kind of war that would follow (aside from Putin and his oligarchs, and the military industry as a whole, of course). So the question then is, should Finland and Sweden sacrifice their security (and existence, possibly) in the interest of avoiding eventual global nuclear war? Could it even be reasonably argued that we have to allow Putin to attack and conquer countries one by one, to eventually take them back decades later after he and any like-minded people are no longer factors?

 

I don't know if there is such a way, but I wish it were possible to apply to Nato covertly, or to otherwise enter the defensive guarantee within a window that becomes known too late to Putin for him to 'veto', even with the threat of nuking us.

A final question mark is what if someone like Trump seizes power in the US again – perhaps with some Russian help. They could then decide to withdraw from Nato to "focus on problems in our own country" (like critical race theory or people in the wrong bathrooms), leaving Europe to fend off for itself.

Edited February 26, 2022 by S3lvah

[Da Bazz 715]

4 hours ago, S3lvah said:

I feel like Finland and Sweden should apply to join Nato at this point, if for no other reason then as a further punitive measure against Russia's actions. I don't really see a world where Nato would invade Russia, so it's pretty clear the actual reason they don't want us joining is to keep us on the menu for the future (whether it be invasion or just threats to advance foreign policy goals).

 

On the other hand, Putin would definitely feel pressured to attack us and fast if we started the application process, since it'd be his best window of opportunity (the justification is there, and the increased defense isn't). So whether we want it or not, it would act as an escalation. And ultimately there are only losers in the kind of war that would follow (aside from Putin and his oligarchs, and the military industry as a whole, of course). So the question then is, should Finland and Sweden sacrifice their security (and existence, possibly) in the interest of avoiding eventual global nuclear war? Could it even be reasonably argued that we have to allow Putin to attack and conquer countries one by one, to eventually take them back decades later after he and any like-minded people are no longer factors?

 

I don't know if there is such a way, but I wish it were possible to apply to Nato covertly, or to otherwise enter the defensive guarantee within a window that becomes known too late to Putin for him to 'veto', even with the threat of nuking us.

A final question mark is what if someone like Trump seizes power in the US again – perhaps with some Russian help. They could then decide to withdraw from Nato to "focus on problems in our own country" (like critical race theory or people in the wrong bathrooms), leaving Europe to fend off for itself.

What's the justification for attacking Finland / Sweden if either were to apply to NATO? Is there a same agreement as there is with Ukraine (not allowed to join with NATO or it's an act of war)?

I don't think escalating the conflict is beneficial at all. Spreading Russia's forces over multiple areas maybe? Finland / Sweden I think are a 'higher' level country than Ukraine. Meaning they are of more worth to the EU than Ukraine. If either were attacked in the same way as Ukraine was then I'm fairly certain NATO or at least Germany, France, maybe UK would try to do something about it. That would mean a larger scale war. War is never the correct choice.

 

Are Finland / Sweden in a similar predicament as Ukraine? Large repressed Russian population? I'd think of Finland / Sweden as more 'tolerable' countries to Russian speakers. I read that in Ukraine some Russian populations had it bad / slave like conditions etc, is this the same in Finland /Sweden?

 

How are you feeling about this whole ordeal? What's the general emotion in Finland at this moment?

 

 

[S3lvah 291]

12 hours ago, Da Bazz said:

What's the justification for attacking Finland / Sweden if either were to apply to NATO? Is there a same agreement as there is with Ukraine (not allowed to join with NATO or it's an act of war)?

I don't think escalating the conflict is beneficial at all. Spreading Russia's forces over multiple areas maybe? Finland / Sweden I think are a 'higher' level country than Ukraine. Meaning they are of more worth to the EU than Ukraine. If either were attacked in the same way as Ukraine was then I'm fairly certain NATO or at least Germany, France, maybe UK would try to do something about it. That would mean a larger scale war. War is never the correct choice.

 

Are Finland / Sweden in a similar predicament as Ukraine? Large repressed Russian population? I'd think of Finland / Sweden as more 'tolerable' countries to Russian speakers. I read that in Ukraine some Russian populations had it bad / slave like conditions etc, is this the same in Finland /Sweden?

 

How are you feeling about this whole ordeal? What's the general emotion in Finland at this moment?

 

 

The Kreml insists that any expansion of Nato toward the east is a provocation and wants guarantees against it.

 

Yea we're a "higher level priority" to the EU, but most relevant EU countries are in Nato and entirely base their national security on Nato, while the EU exists mainly for economic and generally diplomatic purposes.

 

No, there isn't much of a Russian population to speak of here, and especially not in Sweden – and there's little discrimination from the state. Ukraine had indeed been removing some rights/status from the Russian language recently, and there are some neo-nazis in some seats of power in Ukraine. But Putin using the latter as an excuse to attack is wildly hypocritical after he's been directly supporting far-right parties across Europe and the US. In fact, the existence of groups like Svoboda seems to be a boon to him if anything (extremists fuel each other).

 

Finland is worried – but at the same time, most people alive now weren't during our wars, so it's hard for us to even understand what to fear. Personally I'm worried Putin is going insane in his isolation and will launch a "preventative" ICBM nuke at Helsinki as soon as he gets intel of any Nato-joining talks. I don't see the world going to war against Russia if they nuked a neutral country (since at that point, against a leader willing to do that, it would be risking the end of the world for the sake of belated revenge), so he could do it without having to fear immediate destruction.

It's not likely, but given how... bad that would be, even a slight chance is worrying.

[Ace 632]

6 hours ago, S3lvah said:

Finland is worried – but at the same time, most people alive now weren't during our wars, so it's hard for us to even understand what to fear. Personally I'm worried Putin is going insane in his isolation and will launch a "preventative" ICBM nuke at Helsinki as soon as he gets intel of any Nato-joining talks. I don't see the world going to war against Russia if they nuked a neutral country (since at that point, against a leader willing to do that, it would be risking the end of the world for the sake of belated revenge), so he could do it without having to fear immediate destruction.

It's not likely, but given how... bad that would be, even a slight chance is worrying.

No one can really blame you for being worried about the possibilities right now. The entire world is throwing different predictions around but even concepts which have a lot of evidence backing them might not occur. 

 

There's absolutely no telling what's going on in Putin's mind.

 

And in a similar vein, there's no telling what's going on in the mind of the Russian people. For the moment there was a lot of protest, a lot of support for Ukraine even among Russian civilians. You had Russian troops inside of Ukraine during the invasion who were confused as to why Ukrainians weren't supporting them because they were likely told they went in under the concept of peace keeping. But this was all before the a good portion of other countries decided to officially start isolating Russia. The logical thought process is to blame your leader and pressure them to make the necessary changes in order to have other countries release their restrictions. Sometimes people aren't logical though. There's always the possibility that the people of Russia may lash out at the world, rather than at Putin when the restrictions we've placed on them as a country start to kick in.

[≈Vanuckle 2,136]

 

[@Brian 2,802]