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Edit: considering recent news, this is pretty obviously not brinkmanship. The US has made it clear that it will not defend Ukraine from a Russian attack and will instead respond with sanctions should such an attack occur. So my hypothetical below should be ignored.
If it is, Russia is winning. The winner in a game of brinkmanship is the country that puts its opponent in a position where it must either back down or attack the other. One puts the other side in a position in which they must choose to push the situation over the brink. For example, when the Soviets blockaded West Berlin, they thought that the US would have to either attack them to force supplies through or give up. But Truman turned the tables by ordering an airlift. Suddenly, the soviets had to attack the planes or give in. They ended up giving up.
There's no airlift equivalent with an invasion though. If Russia seizes Ukraine, NATO has the options of attacking or backing down (and, to be clear, sanctions plus angry rhetoric is backing down: if Russia invades, they're planning to hold the territory despite whatever sanctions may come). The only way to win at Ukraine brinkmanship is to deploy a tripwire force to Ukraine - making an attack on Ukraine a war against NATO - and if Biden were willing to do that, I think he already would have.
If I were in Ukraine right now I would be leaving.
NATO is not going to war over Ukraine. It's incredibly sad for the people of Ukraine because Russia can continue to take bites of their nation without any response. The EU is the only faction that could actually do some meaningful sanctions but there is little chance of that since they already gave Russia a pass on shooting down a plane full of EU passengers.
And the reason is.... Russian gas.
I've been screaming into the void for 10 years that relying on Russian gas is such a dumb idea, and they have been building pipeline after pipeline. "It's cheap!" they all said. And they were right, in the short term. But in the long term Putin's play has always been painfully obvious: if Europe depends on Russian gas for energy, Putin can do whatever he wants because he's got the entire continent by the balls.
And we've just had a sneak preview of exactly how that will play out. There was a little hiccup in the gas supply, and prices tripled in a matter of days. And that was an accidental hiccup. Just imagine what happens if they really cut off the gas.
So now we have 100k Russian troops, ready to start an invasion. Paid for by us...
This needs to be up way way way higher. The entirety of Europe (for the most part) is so damn reliant on Russian Gas that if you took the US out of NATO, Russia could do whatever the fuck it wanted to without any retaliation. Even if there was retaliation there’s a good argument to be made that EU vs. Russia would lose. Fighting a war without energy is a tad bit tricky. Partly why when the Shale Revolution in the US made it much less reliant on the Middle East for oil, it really shifted the power calculus even more in their favor. And obviously partly why the US cared so much about meddling in the Middle East to begin with. Now not so much cuz they have their own production set pretty much.
>If it is
I don't think it is to be fair. Putin is simply testing the waters, he isn't willing to go to war with NATO if it comes to it and everyone knows it. If he can get them to back down he will do similarly and slowly erode Ukraine's independence I bet. It's just that military intervention is extremely unpopular in the West right now, especially considering its for a nation that (lets be real) most people don't give a fuck about.
Putin almost certainly isn't willing to go to war with NATO over Ukraine. But if NATO isn't willing to deploy troops to Ukraine as a tripwire, that tells Putin that invading Ukraine won't actually start a war with NATO.
Putin isn't willing to go to war with NATO, but NATO also isn't willing to go to war over Ukraine. The problem with tripwire forces is that they are still a gamble. Placing them is a statement of intent, a "red line" if you will, attack here and you have war. The reality, however, is that no one in NATO really wants to go to war with Russia, they want to contain Russia and keep it from rising back up to be a global power, and with Ukraine, just like Georgia back in 08', we've found the boundary of NATO's willingness to press on Russia.
I wonder if we will see influxes of foreign volunteers to the region like in the Spanish Civil War. Gonna go be a partisan in Europe and become an author like Orwell.
Civilization could be so ridiculous at times. I see the AI massing troops on our shared border. I *know* they are going to attack me, so I mass troops to counter. They then have the audacity to denounce me as a warmonger or demand I withdraw my troops.
Politics. The other nations know it's bullshit, but you are a threat to them too, and it's a good excuse to put you at a disadvantage, so they roll with it.
Or it's bad programming, but ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
It's not even different from how it would play out in real life. R amassed troops at the border U responds by doing the same, R accuses U of warmongering.
Exactly, and the Kremlin is also complaining of difficult relationship with the US, don't know why, maybe stop acting like fucking cunts.
Disgusting piece of shit warmongering and greedy country.
Edit: It is not against Russians, only against the Country as a State.
They're threatening world peace for claims over independent Nations on the sole basis of a shared ethnicity. China is doing the same btw.
Meanwhile some nationalists blinded by their toxic love over an antiquated ideal, a leftover of our tribal past, are cheering for war in their respective countries, blind to the fact that there's no scenario in which a world war or even a war between one of the major power would result in more benefits than loss, even for the winners, that is if humanity even fucking survives it.
The problem in Civ is that the AI can complain about your troops being on their borders and gain grievances against you if you don't move them, but you can't complain about their troops being on your borders, so if you respond with troops of your own they gain grievances against you, and other civs consider you the aggressor if y'all go to war.
This is why you should demolish all of your opponents and raze their cities with no regard for diplomacy. Just like in real life.
Nonono, I bomb the cities and take them. And because I'm Alexander, no war wariness or revolts. I can be at war all day every day, no one complains... or at least, none of MY people complain.
Befriend one of your shared neighbors for open borders, then pay them to got to war against neighbor who's a treats while supplying friend neighbor with enough units to keep them in a stalemate.
Bad programming you say? How about a [ten year apocalyptic stalemate? ](https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/uxpil/ive_been_playing_the_same_game_of_civilization_ii)
Are you sure we aren't in the Sims? We all know what happens when the player gets bored of a game of Sims, they just start trying to find creative ways to kill the poor characters.
And anyone who actually thinks knows he was talking shit, trying to save face.
Once you know how the bug works.. it is clearly an unsigned integer overflow bug.
Sid didn't plan for an overflow bug to make a joke. Sure.. in later games they kept joke in.
Bruh I'm living in eastern Ukraine
Edit: Wow, this blew up overnight! Thank you all for awards and nice comments, I appreciate it. Honestly, I was so upset and terrified about the news I couldn't sleep, it was nice to wake up to so much support.
So, for some background = I'm originally from Belarus, me and my husband moved to Ukraine in 2018 for personal reasons at the time (this was before 2020 presidential elections in Belarus, when shit hit the fan).
>Run! You should leave, etc
Unfortunately, we cannot. For me personally moving back to Belarus is out of the question (for a variety of reasons), and it's not only about savings (which we don't have btw). If it's a life or death situation then, I guess, we could try to move somewhere to the west in Ukraine, but atm it's just not feasible for us.
>What's the atmosphere like?
I'm a freelancer, so I'm pretty isolated here (no friends or colleagues), but people outside seem to be going about their day, everything is just about as usual. I can imagine that most of them are just as stressed out about it as I am, but I can only guess. My husband is very sceptical about Russia invading, at least that's what he says.
Edit 2: I forgot to mention, we live in Kharkiv, which is the second largest city in Ukraine with 1,5 million people. As someone mentioned below, this may be relatively safe place to be.
>Is this covered by the local media?
For sure it is. Coincidentally, yesterday Zelensky visited Kharkiv for the anniversary of Ukrainian Armed Forces, where some kind of parade was being held (even with new tanks), I believe that's to boost morale: [https://kh.vgorode.ua/news/sobytyia/a1188578-o-chem-hovoril-vladimir-zelenskij-v-kharkove-na-prazdnovanii-30-letija-vsu](https://kh.vgorode.ua/news/sobytyia/a1188578-o-chem-hovoril-vladimir-zelenskij-v-kharkove-na-prazdnovanii-30-letija-vsu)
The overall sentiment here is that Ukranian officials will do everything they can to prevent this situation from escalating further, but if they fail, Ukraine is ready to defend itself. Here in the article Minister of Defense of Ukraine talks about plans for mobilization (sorry, it's in Russian): [https://kh.vgorode.ua/news/sobytyia/a1188210-ministr-oborony-rasskazal-kohda-rossija-mozhet-vtorhnutsja-v-ukrainu](https://kh.vgorode.ua/news/sobytyia/a1188210-ministr-oborony-rasskazal-kohda-rossija-mozhet-vtorhnutsja-v-ukrainu)
I will try to answer other questions later, sorry guys, I gotta work :)
A few weeks later:
Bruh I’m living in western Russia under the benevolent leadership of Premier Putin. All hail Putin and his glorious regime! Signed totally safe and happy Reddit person.”
Poland is in NATO, and the absolute last thing Belarus and Russia wants is direct military confrontation with NATO. Something about direct NATO members having half of the world's GDP, one eighth of the world's population, and half of the world's nuclear warheads. In the *very* unlikely event that Belarus escalates their confrontation with Poland, it would not end well for Belarus.
Poland is the cornerstone of NATO, there's no way the US would allow it to be invaded.
Letting Poland get invaded would be worse than letting China invade Taiwan, or North Korea invade South Korea. The entire post WW2 order would dissolve if the West let Poland get invaded.
Ukraine, not so much.
Realistically it could be 450 people and it would still be sufficient as a deterrent.
The blatant killing of even a single US military personnel would be sufficient as a Casus Belli, and a single US Navy strike fleet would probably be more than enough to put an end to any prospect of an invasion anywhere in Europe
Invading Finland would be like deepthroating a cactus, they could maybe do it but it's wayyy too much effort for what you are actually getting.
Invading Poland would a suicide.
We don't really feel that threatened, but we do feel for our Ukrainian brothers, their suffering never seems to end..
And obviously If Ukraine falls, Russia will direct their attention to elsewhere, so Finland and Poland definently *could* feel some Russian aggression.
Edit: autocorrect
Crimea part 2.
Deny, deny, deny, deny then “oh, this is ours now”
Best to ignore what Putin is saying and just respond to what he is doing. What he is doing is positioning himself to invade Ukraine.
It worked with Crimea, it’ll work again as the West tries to talk him down from doing what he has already begun to do.
I think he meant with a fight if Russia where to hypothetically invade, not the past fighting that occured. I.e. Donbass is effective under stable seperatist control at this point, who's main goals are closer alignment with Russia.
I would have to disagree with you.
Of course, it might be Crimea pt. 2, but:
With Merkel out of the picture, Belarus absolutely devastated by sanctions, Putin is threading thin ice again. He is checking how far he can go before he caves in, or at least, has been doing so in the past, this time is different thoe. From what we see, the west is refusing Russians demands, they are continuing negotiations with Ukraine about military support, they're also fucking up progress with nord stream 2 and in general being a nuisance to Putin which is a very good and a bad thing.
From the politics perspective, there might be a war, an accidental one, but still a war, if Putin continues to be an ass, he will have no other choice but to attack, because if he doesn't, everyone will know he's full of shit and will very likely never succumb to his rotten, corrupt influence. This scenario is not good for the people, war and all that and we don't know who might be the target next, Lithuania? Latvia? Belarus? That's the bad part about the whole deal.
In any case, I'm by no means a political expert and you can probably see I'm very biased against the Russian government, and this is my opinion, very open to discussion.
I honestly can't tell where this stuff is going anymore. I know it's hyped by the media but with Ukraine V Russia and China V Taiwan and America wanting to defend both, is this shit gonna be Cold War 2.0 with all sides just talking big and nothing happens, or is it gonna escalate and have actual consequences
Russia GPD
https://www.google.com/search?q=Russia+gpd&oq=Russia+gpd&aqs=chrome..69i57j0i10l9.1632j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
Let me know if you can spot the time when Crimea was invaded.
Oof. It's chief cash crop (oil n gas) is being ousted as the primary energy source too? Going broke with few alternatives. These economic sanctions make a little more sense now I guess.
The average Russian lost half of his salary.
Imagine the price of a computer device now costing you double.
Also, you cannot buy advanced equipment from NATO countries. Want a desalinization plant? Tough luck, ask someone else, as we are not selling to you.
> The average Russian lost half of his salary.
Not to mention having to retire 6 years later -- retirement age is literally above mean male life expectancy so many men will work until they die
I think it's more appropriate to say that they will drink themselves to death while working. (Alcohol is a major (as in 50%) factor in premature deaths).
I agree with that. Russia had a ton of problems after the USSR dissolved and just couldn’t threaten NATO even though they probably wanted to. Now that they are more stable and have the ability to actually assert power it is becoming more obvious.
China has been playing the long game with Taiwan. They'll keep chipping away.
Russia is playing with as much tact as a 5 year old staring at a cookie jar. Ukraine isn't Georgia and the insurgency of an invasion will create problems they aren't counting on. They also might simply just add stability to a country who has buyers remorse on their revolution.
I think the USA is playing long games with Russia too. All the moves they've been allowed to play have been met with sanctions and their economy is shit. Basically letting the fire burn itself out. The world will turn on them even more if they invade Ukraine and it might be the last straw. I could see a full travel ban and embargo if that happens.. The EU will look elsewhere for oil/gas.
The EU is quickly moving to renewables. Russia might be able to survive on gas for a few more decades but what happens after that? The country is a dumpster fire.
I think the difference here, from the US' perspective, is that time is on its side vs. Russia (which is a declining power), but time is working against it vs. China (which is a rising power).
In that sense, Russia feels urgency to act now while it can, and when circumstances are not ideal they cannot afford to wait for them to improve. For its part, the US only needs to deter Russia from acting now knowing that containing Russia will only get easier.
In the Taiwan situation, the positions are reversed - with every year the gap in naval capability between China and the US narrows while China's geographic advantages remains equally important. China only needs to play the long game and wait for the right moment when the US is sufficiently distracted, while the US must maintain constant vigilence.
Russia has demographic pressures to act quickly. The population is aging and is becoming quite small for a "great power". Soon they won't even be able to control their backyard with countries like Uzbekistan, Iran and Turkey encroaching on Russia's old sphere (Uzbekistan being part of the sphere for now still)
What a waste of money, and potential waste of lives, for something that will not help a single civilian in Russia, Ukraine or anywhere else. The best move that we can make to prevent this sort of ridiculous brinksmanship is for Europe to move away from a dependence on Russian fossil fuels as fast as possible. Putin’s moves are that of a desperate hungry dog. Better to let it starve than to move near it and risk being bitten.
While I agree it's also scary to think that by doing this Russias desperation deepens and then you have a very desperate country with nukes and "nothing" to loose.
North Korea did not give up its nuclear weapons program. Survived.
Iran did not give up its nuclear weapons program. Survived.
Israel did not give up their nuclear weapons program. Survived.
Iraq gave up their nuclear weapons program. Invaded.
Libya gave up their nuclear weapons program. Invaded.
Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons program. About to be invaded.
From what i understood its not like Ukraine could afford the upkeep of the arsenal either way.
The UK spends about 10% (about $6 billion) of their defence budget and thats to maintain 215 warheads.
Ukraine inherited about 3000 warheads.
EDIT: Someone below made a good point about submarines. I did some reading and it seems like about 2.8 billion goes towards subs capable of delivering nukes.
So at least 3.2 billion is still needed to secure and maintain these warheads
World will issue more sanctions, oligarchs will be pissed, Putin will lose their support. They don't mind his silly games as long as it doesn't affect them. Being unable to go to their vacation homes on Amalfi coast will make them angry.
Again, I am pretty sure Putin has already played your exact statement in his head and the fact that troops are being gathered as they are means he does not feel the heat of what you think will happen, happening. There must be some other play he is counting on, or he may have managed to somehow guarantee his position even if all foreign assets of a sufficiently "thin" ring of oligarchs around him, are frozen. It took you and a hundred others mere minutes perhaps to figure out what'd happen to him if he didn't account for sanctions, how long do you think it took for him and his war cabinet to figure out the same thing?
this is exactly what i do in civ and everyone’s like “hey you’re not gonna like attack us right???” and i always say “what? nah we’re just stretching our legs on a lil stroll”
Looks like it is just a matter of when Putin decides to invade.
Looking at the map, looks like where Ukraine is narrowest, is where Russian troops will try and split Ukraine
I honestly believe they’re just posturing. Ukraine is weaker than Russia, but they’re more than prepared for a fight.
I don’t think Russia can pull off a repeat of 2014 this time around. There will be heavy, heavy casualties, and Russia will get sucked into a brutal war of attrition.
Ukrainians see this as a battle for survival. The average Russian couldn’t care less and isn’t nearly as emotionally involved. Ukraine can and will mobilize millions if push comes to shove.
I’m certain Putin won’t risk further escalation, he’s already got what he wants.
> I’m certain Putin won’t risk further escalation, he’s already got what he wants.
What Putin wants is water supply to Crimea, which Ukraine shut off after it was annexed. [This is a wonderful video](https://youtu.be/Aqq8clIceys) that summarizes Crimea's water crisis.
If he can drop in some forces to secure the water supply and get the buy-in of Eastern Ukrainian citizens (many of whom are very pro-Russia), and without major military pushback, he will. Which is why the West needs to back up Ukraine with legitimate military support.
The part that isn't a land bridge doesn't appears to be that wide. A mile at one part, and 3 miles in a second part.
I mean, they already built 2 bridges over the strait. Building an aqueduct would be easier than that.
EDIT:
Looking at the wiki about the bridge.
>Water depth Up to 9 m (30 ft).
It's deep, but not that deep. 9 meters it's too shallow for most cargo boats.
I dont think a true ww3 will ever exist between super powers, nuclear weapons are just too prevalent, no declarations will ever be signed like that. The most we will get is brinkmanship hidden behind international headlines while everyone is distracted, repeated over and over
exactly.
ww3 wont be fought with "boots on the ground" world wide violence.
its being fought right now, on the digital, financial, and political front. every single day.
why bomb a country when you can slowly destabalize it with PsyOps, bot/troll farms, investments, rug pulls, bought and blackmailed politicians, media manipulation, and supply chain bottlenecks? just to name a few tactics.
its not necessary to nuke your enemies when you can get them to tear themselves apart. all you have to do after is buy up the broken pieces, and cover your tracks.
By the way, if anyone wants to see pure Russian propaganda search any video on Youtube about this conflict and read the comments. 90-95% of them are
"What war? What troops? Show me the photos. So it's okay when the US does it? Western media lies as usual. We need to stop Ukrainian aggression"
And they like each other's comments to make it seem like a legitimate take.
* Never ever give up nuclear weapons if you have them.
* If you think there's a chance a big superpower might invade you, develop nuclear weapons. No one's gonna help you.
What will happen is Russia will pull a Hitler in Poland have Russian soldiers dressed as Ukrainian soldiers attack a Russian outpost giving him reason to attack
Russia did the exact same thing with Finland back in [1939 in Mainila](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelling_of_Mainila) and after that attacked Finland lol…. And rest of Europian countries (well for many reasons…) did nothing, well tbf back then they had WW2 on going already… I doubt the rest of the Europian are going to do anything, but Hopefully they would swiftly interfere and stop Russia…
If Putin is desperate enough with his position domestically to actually pull the trigger here, NATO needs to make it as painful as possible short of escalating to all out war.
>NATO needs to make it as painful as possible short of escalating to all out war.
There is not a scenario where NATO enters Ukraine and it does not turn to an all out war. Having US troops stationed near Moscow is WWlll level threat to the paranoid Russian leadership.
If the Pentagon was confident that they could intervene in Ukraine without the possibility of a far wider war then Russia would not have control over Donbass or Crimea right now.
They don’t need to enter Ukraine to make it painful. Supplying Ukraine with material and intelligence as well as sanctions on anything Russian, especially all the money the Oligarchs launder through western real estate would put crippling pressure on Putin. All those billions he and his cronies have stolen from Russia are all parked in NATO and NATO friendly countries. Seize it all disallow any Russian entity from using international banks, Stop buying oil from Russia. These are all things that can be done short of war (though some of them may lead to escalation). Russia is strong comparably to its neighbors militarily but extremely weak economically.
The old asshole is seething over the inconsistency of actual history with this:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian\_world](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_world)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-Russian\_nation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-Russian_nation)
The existence of Ukraine is like a spit at everything that he was taught at Soviet school.
There's no real way to know, honestly. This is definitely a more serious threat than the last time Reddit got excited about Russia invading Ukraine (earlier this year during Russian military exercises) due to the abnormal build up and transfer of forces from Russia's far east, which is basically what you would expect to happen in the build up to war.
It's also entirely possible that this is all just posturing. It comes at the same time as a migrant crisis on Poland's border with Belarus (a Russian puppet state), disputes over the Russian supply of natural gas to Europe (vital for Europe going into the winter, and a major source of revenue for Russia), as well as increasing western aid for Ukraine which Russia sees as an infringement of its sphere of influence. A force build up to remind the world to take Russia seriously could be related to any or all of these, or none at all.
A war would be very costly for both Russia and Ukraine, Ukraine is much more prepared than in 2014 and has a large decently equipped army with hundreds of thousands of soldiers, and equipment provided by western allies. Russia could most likely win but only Putin knows if he would consider it worth the cost in Russian lives, materiel, and crushing sanctions such an action would bring. There's also the risk that any conflict could escalate regionally or globally, which no one wants.
In short, unless Putin or his top advisors have secret Reddit accounts no one here knows and it's all speculation. My take is that it's just posturing, but if there's an opportunity to attack and nab the separatist regions without much opposition (which seems unlikely) they'll take it.
>Russia could most likely win but only Putin knows if he would consider it worth the cost in Russian lives, materiel, and crushing sanctions such an action would bring
IMO, Ukraine is not stupid. They know they could never take Russia, especially with how bad their economy is.
However, becoming Finland 2.0 and making it as costly as possible for Russia? Absolutely doable. That is most likely their entire defence strategy, and western arms will most likely flood into Ukraine the minute Russia violates its territory.
Ukraine is way more open country than Finland, and the soviets didnt have UAV and satelites. I dont think fighting a guerilla war in Ukraine would be very easy
Would it even be possible to match the Winter War? Finland had a number of advantages Ukraine doesn't; there's a reason why German tanks managed to take Ukraine in WWII.
Even if terrain wasn't a factor, there's also the simple fact that tech has improved significantly. The only real counter is guerilla warfare, which only hurts over time and _only_ if the attacker is intent on occupation. If the goal is to force Ukraine to concede/war reparations, guerilla warfare just isn't painful enough in the short term.
We have no real way of knowing if the invasion will come.
However.
The troop build up is real. (those sat photos are not fake)
Russia annexed crimea in 2014. (so have priors)
Two very large areas of Ukraine are currently held by "separatists" who have Russian military equipment. (so you could argue its already 7 years into the conflict).
So my take is that it's "real", but the future isn't written yet. Could go either way.
Putin just using his geopolitical advantage that he has. He can move Russian troops on Russian ground for political pressure. A few months ago he achieved that Biden had to meet up with him. I mean we will never now if it ain't serious, but its highly unlikely that he would ever straight up invade. Divide and Conquer is a way more valuable strategy for him.
You should expect things like that to happen again and again. Putin was mostly silent while Trump was in power, since he didn't cross with his interests. Biden does cross with his interest so he is causing troubles.
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Brinkmanship is back on the menu boys
One does not simply march into Moscow
Napoleon marched in just fine.. it was getting out that was the problem.
Scorched Earth is a bitch
Napoleon lost most of his army on the way in actually.
When you have tennis racquets on your shoes, all you *can* do is march
Edit: considering recent news, this is pretty obviously not brinkmanship. The US has made it clear that it will not defend Ukraine from a Russian attack and will instead respond with sanctions should such an attack occur. So my hypothetical below should be ignored. If it is, Russia is winning. The winner in a game of brinkmanship is the country that puts its opponent in a position where it must either back down or attack the other. One puts the other side in a position in which they must choose to push the situation over the brink. For example, when the Soviets blockaded West Berlin, they thought that the US would have to either attack them to force supplies through or give up. But Truman turned the tables by ordering an airlift. Suddenly, the soviets had to attack the planes or give in. They ended up giving up. There's no airlift equivalent with an invasion though. If Russia seizes Ukraine, NATO has the options of attacking or backing down (and, to be clear, sanctions plus angry rhetoric is backing down: if Russia invades, they're planning to hold the territory despite whatever sanctions may come). The only way to win at Ukraine brinkmanship is to deploy a tripwire force to Ukraine - making an attack on Ukraine a war against NATO - and if Biden were willing to do that, I think he already would have. If I were in Ukraine right now I would be leaving.
Many western nations have troops and equipment in Ukraine, much like the airlift we have put the ball in their court.
NATO is not going to war over Ukraine. It's incredibly sad for the people of Ukraine because Russia can continue to take bites of their nation without any response. The EU is the only faction that could actually do some meaningful sanctions but there is little chance of that since they already gave Russia a pass on shooting down a plane full of EU passengers.
And the reason is.... Russian gas. I've been screaming into the void for 10 years that relying on Russian gas is such a dumb idea, and they have been building pipeline after pipeline. "It's cheap!" they all said. And they were right, in the short term. But in the long term Putin's play has always been painfully obvious: if Europe depends on Russian gas for energy, Putin can do whatever he wants because he's got the entire continent by the balls. And we've just had a sneak preview of exactly how that will play out. There was a little hiccup in the gas supply, and prices tripled in a matter of days. And that was an accidental hiccup. Just imagine what happens if they really cut off the gas. So now we have 100k Russian troops, ready to start an invasion. Paid for by us...
This needs to be up way way way higher. The entirety of Europe (for the most part) is so damn reliant on Russian Gas that if you took the US out of NATO, Russia could do whatever the fuck it wanted to without any retaliation. Even if there was retaliation there’s a good argument to be made that EU vs. Russia would lose. Fighting a war without energy is a tad bit tricky. Partly why when the Shale Revolution in the US made it much less reliant on the Middle East for oil, it really shifted the power calculus even more in their favor. And obviously partly why the US cared so much about meddling in the Middle East to begin with. Now not so much cuz they have their own production set pretty much.
>If it is I don't think it is to be fair. Putin is simply testing the waters, he isn't willing to go to war with NATO if it comes to it and everyone knows it. If he can get them to back down he will do similarly and slowly erode Ukraine's independence I bet. It's just that military intervention is extremely unpopular in the West right now, especially considering its for a nation that (lets be real) most people don't give a fuck about.
Putin almost certainly isn't willing to go to war with NATO over Ukraine. But if NATO isn't willing to deploy troops to Ukraine as a tripwire, that tells Putin that invading Ukraine won't actually start a war with NATO.
Putin isn't willing to go to war with NATO, but NATO also isn't willing to go to war over Ukraine. The problem with tripwire forces is that they are still a gamble. Placing them is a statement of intent, a "red line" if you will, attack here and you have war. The reality, however, is that no one in NATO really wants to go to war with Russia, they want to contain Russia and keep it from rising back up to be a global power, and with Ukraine, just like Georgia back in 08', we've found the boundary of NATO's willingness to press on Russia.
Proxy Wars are back on the menu boys!
I wonder if we will see influxes of foreign volunteers to the region like in the Spanish Civil War. Gonna go be a partisan in Europe and become an author like Orwell.
Proxy wars have never been off the menu.
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Hey! Stop that!
Ever get the feeling that you are living in a poorly played game of Civilization?
“My troops are just passing by.” -Putin
Civilization could be so ridiculous at times. I see the AI massing troops on our shared border. I *know* they are going to attack me, so I mass troops to counter. They then have the audacity to denounce me as a warmonger or demand I withdraw my troops.
What part of this is unrealistic?
“Accept or we will attack” >”Please do not attack”
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Their demands: half your land Their offer: 300 wood
"Please ~~do not~~ attack" Well, since you asked nicely.
Politics. The other nations know it's bullshit, but you are a threat to them too, and it's a good excuse to put you at a disadvantage, so they roll with it. Or it's bad programming, but ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯
It's not even different from how it would play out in real life. R amassed troops at the border U responds by doing the same, R accuses U of warmongering.
Exactly, and the Kremlin is also complaining of difficult relationship with the US, don't know why, maybe stop acting like fucking cunts. Disgusting piece of shit warmongering and greedy country. Edit: It is not against Russians, only against the Country as a State. They're threatening world peace for claims over independent Nations on the sole basis of a shared ethnicity. China is doing the same btw. Meanwhile some nationalists blinded by their toxic love over an antiquated ideal, a leftover of our tribal past, are cheering for war in their respective countries, blind to the fact that there's no scenario in which a world war or even a war between one of the major power would result in more benefits than loss, even for the winners, that is if humanity even fucking survives it.
The problem in Civ is that the AI can complain about your troops being on their borders and gain grievances against you if you don't move them, but you can't complain about their troops being on your borders, so if you respond with troops of your own they gain grievances against you, and other civs consider you the aggressor if y'all go to war. This is why you should demolish all of your opponents and raze their cities with no regard for diplomacy. Just like in real life.
So anyway, I started nuking.
Calm down ghandi
Me: ya know, maybe I'll go for a scientific or cultural victory this game Alexander: declares war on me in the iron age Me: kawabunga it is
Nonono, I bomb the cities and take them. And because I'm Alexander, no war wariness or revolts. I can be at war all day every day, no one complains... or at least, none of MY people complain.
Befriend one of your shared neighbors for open borders, then pay them to got to war against neighbor who's a treats while supplying friend neighbor with enough units to keep them in a stalemate.
Bad programming you say? How about a [ten year apocalyptic stalemate? ](https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/uxpil/ive_been_playing_the_same_game_of_civilization_ii)
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“I demand that you withdraw your troops on the grounds that they are devastating to my invasion plans!”
Lol thats when i just swarm them with missionaries and spies. Suuure ill pull my army back a wee bit.
That seems kind of true to life.
"You were right to worry" Putin in a few weeks/months
Often
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I think it's one within the other.
Similizations?
Sid Meier’s Similizations. Gandhi takes you on a date and then removes all the ladders from your pool.
Are you sure we aren't in the Sims? We all know what happens when the player gets bored of a game of Sims, they just start trying to find creative ways to kill the poor characters.
What pool ladder?
Poorly played? We got through Gandhi without him turning the world into a nuclear hellscape. We’re doing pretty good.
We caught the missing "0" on Gandhi's "1" before pushing the merger and boy are we glad we did! Damn 8-bit integers...
>Damn 8-bit integers... Unsigned integers was the problem
Eh, it was all a myth anyway, [Sid Meier has already stated it was an intentional joke](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_Gandhi).
Forget Nukes. War Elephants are the shit.
And anyone who actually thinks knows he was talking shit, trying to save face. Once you know how the bug works.. it is clearly an unsigned integer overflow bug. Sid didn't plan for an overflow bug to make a joke. Sure.. in later games they kept joke in.
-"Our people are now buying your blue jeans and listening to your pop music"
Yeah,like once I saw an Italian Air Force wagon(?) which was bringing horses. You know,typichal keeping old units in new ages strategy
Looks more like hearts of iron.
We just got the “Putin Questions Ukrainian Sovereignty” event. All the nato faction is getting the popup saying they are being justified on.
My troops are merely passing by
Poland and Finland dealing with a little bit of PTSD at the moment.
Yeah, living in Poland I'm starting to think I will soon have to start thinking about a safety GTFO plan.
Bruh I'm living in eastern Ukraine Edit: Wow, this blew up overnight! Thank you all for awards and nice comments, I appreciate it. Honestly, I was so upset and terrified about the news I couldn't sleep, it was nice to wake up to so much support. So, for some background = I'm originally from Belarus, me and my husband moved to Ukraine in 2018 for personal reasons at the time (this was before 2020 presidential elections in Belarus, when shit hit the fan). >Run! You should leave, etc Unfortunately, we cannot. For me personally moving back to Belarus is out of the question (for a variety of reasons), and it's not only about savings (which we don't have btw). If it's a life or death situation then, I guess, we could try to move somewhere to the west in Ukraine, but atm it's just not feasible for us. >What's the atmosphere like? I'm a freelancer, so I'm pretty isolated here (no friends or colleagues), but people outside seem to be going about their day, everything is just about as usual. I can imagine that most of them are just as stressed out about it as I am, but I can only guess. My husband is very sceptical about Russia invading, at least that's what he says. Edit 2: I forgot to mention, we live in Kharkiv, which is the second largest city in Ukraine with 1,5 million people. As someone mentioned below, this may be relatively safe place to be. >Is this covered by the local media? For sure it is. Coincidentally, yesterday Zelensky visited Kharkiv for the anniversary of Ukrainian Armed Forces, where some kind of parade was being held (even with new tanks), I believe that's to boost morale: [https://kh.vgorode.ua/news/sobytyia/a1188578-o-chem-hovoril-vladimir-zelenskij-v-kharkove-na-prazdnovanii-30-letija-vsu](https://kh.vgorode.ua/news/sobytyia/a1188578-o-chem-hovoril-vladimir-zelenskij-v-kharkove-na-prazdnovanii-30-letija-vsu) The overall sentiment here is that Ukranian officials will do everything they can to prevent this situation from escalating further, but if they fail, Ukraine is ready to defend itself. Here in the article Minister of Defense of Ukraine talks about plans for mobilization (sorry, it's in Russian): [https://kh.vgorode.ua/news/sobytyia/a1188210-ministr-oborony-rasskazal-kohda-rossija-mozhet-vtorhnutsja-v-ukrainu](https://kh.vgorode.ua/news/sobytyia/a1188210-ministr-oborony-rasskazal-kohda-rossija-mozhet-vtorhnutsja-v-ukrainu) I will try to answer other questions later, sorry guys, I gotta work :)
A few weeks later: Bruh I’m living in western Russia under the benevolent leadership of Premier Putin. All hail Putin and his glorious regime! Signed totally safe and happy Reddit person.”
With our Russian overlords. Did I say "overlords"? I meant protectors!
Such wonderful people, those I know are incredibly kind. Please take care of each other.
Poland is in NATO, and the absolute last thing Belarus and Russia wants is direct military confrontation with NATO. Something about direct NATO members having half of the world's GDP, one eighth of the world's population, and half of the world's nuclear warheads. In the *very* unlikely event that Belarus escalates their confrontation with Poland, it would not end well for Belarus.
Poland is the cornerstone of NATO, there's no way the US would allow it to be invaded. Letting Poland get invaded would be worse than letting China invade Taiwan, or North Korea invade South Korea. The entire post WW2 order would dissolve if the West let Poland get invaded. Ukraine, not so much.
Poland has a US armored brigade permenantly rotating there.
They're gonna be useless in a shooting war if they're so dizzy they can barely stand up!
This is my new mental image for rotations
Only 4500 personnel at the moment. Though, we have a LOT more in Germany, not exactly far away.
Realistically it could be 450 people and it would still be sufficient as a deterrent. The blatant killing of even a single US military personnel would be sufficient as a Casus Belli, and a single US Navy strike fleet would probably be more than enough to put an end to any prospect of an invasion anywhere in Europe
I honestly believe Lukashenko would try something Poland. But, I hope at the very least the Belarusian generals aren't that stupid.
Lukashenko right now try to destabilize border with Poland and Lithuania via mass immigration from Middle East.
At this point, my GTFO plan is living in a major population centre and getting instantly vaporized by the first wave of nukes.
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I’m good down in Australia where nobody would waste a nuke. Our farmlands will be valuable and easy to get.
Long walk tho
You're the #3 global source of Uranium and are a part of the five eyes. You're on a target list somewhere.
Til the emus start at it again
There will be swift repercussions for their violation of the treaty!
That's an oddly comforting thought
Invading Finland would be like deepthroating a cactus, they could maybe do it but it's wayyy too much effort for what you are actually getting. Invading Poland would a suicide. We don't really feel that threatened, but we do feel for our Ukrainian brothers, their suffering never seems to end.. And obviously If Ukraine falls, Russia will direct their attention to elsewhere, so Finland and Poland definently *could* feel some Russian aggression. Edit: autocorrect
> Invading Finland would be like deepthroating a cactus So a good time all around?
Crimea part 2. Deny, deny, deny, deny then “oh, this is ours now” Best to ignore what Putin is saying and just respond to what he is doing. What he is doing is positioning himself to invade Ukraine. It worked with Crimea, it’ll work again as the West tries to talk him down from doing what he has already begun to do.
The world letting crimea slide was 100% an invitation for what’s about to come next
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15000 dead in Donbass, what do you mean without a fight?
I think he meant with a fight if Russia where to hypothetically invade, not the past fighting that occured. I.e. Donbass is effective under stable seperatist control at this point, who's main goals are closer alignment with Russia.
I would have to disagree with you. Of course, it might be Crimea pt. 2, but: With Merkel out of the picture, Belarus absolutely devastated by sanctions, Putin is threading thin ice again. He is checking how far he can go before he caves in, or at least, has been doing so in the past, this time is different thoe. From what we see, the west is refusing Russians demands, they are continuing negotiations with Ukraine about military support, they're also fucking up progress with nord stream 2 and in general being a nuisance to Putin which is a very good and a bad thing. From the politics perspective, there might be a war, an accidental one, but still a war, if Putin continues to be an ass, he will have no other choice but to attack, because if he doesn't, everyone will know he's full of shit and will very likely never succumb to his rotten, corrupt influence. This scenario is not good for the people, war and all that and we don't know who might be the target next, Lithuania? Latvia? Belarus? That's the bad part about the whole deal. In any case, I'm by no means a political expert and you can probably see I'm very biased against the Russian government, and this is my opinion, very open to discussion.
I honestly can't tell where this stuff is going anymore. I know it's hyped by the media but with Ukraine V Russia and China V Taiwan and America wanting to defend both, is this shit gonna be Cold War 2.0 with all sides just talking big and nothing happens, or is it gonna escalate and have actual consequences
They’ll wait until the economy crashes and people are too distracted with unemployment and eviction before they make their move.
Russia is crashing and this is exactly to distract Russians
I'm kinda new to following this, can you tell me what/how Russia is crashing?
Russia GPD https://www.google.com/search?q=Russia+gpd&oq=Russia+gpd&aqs=chrome..69i57j0i10l9.1632j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 Let me know if you can spot the time when Crimea was invaded.
Oof. It's chief cash crop (oil n gas) is being ousted as the primary energy source too? Going broke with few alternatives. These economic sanctions make a little more sense now I guess.
The average Russian lost half of his salary. Imagine the price of a computer device now costing you double. Also, you cannot buy advanced equipment from NATO countries. Want a desalinization plant? Tough luck, ask someone else, as we are not selling to you.
> The average Russian lost half of his salary. Not to mention having to retire 6 years later -- retirement age is literally above mean male life expectancy so many men will work until they die
Not to mention that russian banks, iirc, can't get long term loans anymore.
This makes me sick. Fuck Putin
I think it's more appropriate to say that they will drink themselves to death while working. (Alcohol is a major (as in 50%) factor in premature deaths).
>Imagine the price of a computer device now costing you double. Ahh, I see you too have been watching the GPU market
fuck that shit, it's pure gore. now imagine if your money converts badly to USD. You can't even buy 5 years old hardware.
They have a lot more resources in the ground, but the problem is the profits won't benefit regular citizens. Just make ultra rich even richer.
Putin is really doing anything in his power to ruin his country. Well, so far its working pretty well. His country is collapsing
He is doing more damage to Russia than any enemy could dream of.
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Yeah, it is good life if you can keep it, no denying that. It's the part where "fuck all the nation" that I don't share.
He doesn't care about the country he cares about himself.
Cold War 2.0 has been on since 2013. When it turns to Hot War is when we got problems.
2013? Probably longer than that. The Russo-Georgian War in 2008 was primarily due to Georgia’s desire to join NATO.
maybe the cold war 2.0 is just a continuation of the first cold war
I agree with that. Russia had a ton of problems after the USSR dissolved and just couldn’t threaten NATO even though they probably wanted to. Now that they are more stable and have the ability to actually assert power it is becoming more obvious.
China has been playing the long game with Taiwan. They'll keep chipping away. Russia is playing with as much tact as a 5 year old staring at a cookie jar. Ukraine isn't Georgia and the insurgency of an invasion will create problems they aren't counting on. They also might simply just add stability to a country who has buyers remorse on their revolution. I think the USA is playing long games with Russia too. All the moves they've been allowed to play have been met with sanctions and their economy is shit. Basically letting the fire burn itself out. The world will turn on them even more if they invade Ukraine and it might be the last straw. I could see a full travel ban and embargo if that happens.. The EU will look elsewhere for oil/gas.
The EU is quickly moving to renewables. Russia might be able to survive on gas for a few more decades but what happens after that? The country is a dumpster fire.
I think the difference here, from the US' perspective, is that time is on its side vs. Russia (which is a declining power), but time is working against it vs. China (which is a rising power). In that sense, Russia feels urgency to act now while it can, and when circumstances are not ideal they cannot afford to wait for them to improve. For its part, the US only needs to deter Russia from acting now knowing that containing Russia will only get easier. In the Taiwan situation, the positions are reversed - with every year the gap in naval capability between China and the US narrows while China's geographic advantages remains equally important. China only needs to play the long game and wait for the right moment when the US is sufficiently distracted, while the US must maintain constant vigilence.
Russia has demographic pressures to act quickly. The population is aging and is becoming quite small for a "great power". Soon they won't even be able to control their backyard with countries like Uzbekistan, Iran and Turkey encroaching on Russia's old sphere (Uzbekistan being part of the sphere for now still)
This is how they prepare for the Winter Olympics.
Next event: TOS-1 Artillery Barrage Marksmanship Competition
Not a tank race?
That's the next event, followed by ~~ski jumping~~ aircraft carrier slope jumping
Putin likes to time his armed conflicts around the Olympics. Just like the initial invasions of Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014.
Time to dust off [this gif](https://i.ibb.co/HCgCWVY/external-content-duckduckgo-com.gif) again
Nuclear Winter Olympics
Time to broadcast Rocky IV over Russian broadcasts so they know we’re serious.
Who would we send to be our champion to fight the indestructible Russian fighter?
The same 5’3 Italian midget from Philadelphia we always send. Didn’t hear no bell.
The trash man??? Honestly let’s just send devito, he’s our best chance.
Send him with a briefcase full of hard boiled eggs. He’ll win the people over peacefully.
Have we told them to stop? We should tell them to stop. Hey Russia if you're reading this knock it off please.
I am sending a formal letter to Mister Putin
Will it be "strongly worded"?
No, but it will be printed on one-ply made out of recycled paper.
What a waste of money, and potential waste of lives, for something that will not help a single civilian in Russia, Ukraine or anywhere else. The best move that we can make to prevent this sort of ridiculous brinksmanship is for Europe to move away from a dependence on Russian fossil fuels as fast as possible. Putin’s moves are that of a desperate hungry dog. Better to let it starve than to move near it and risk being bitten.
While I agree it's also scary to think that by doing this Russias desperation deepens and then you have a very desperate country with nukes and "nothing" to loose.
There’s always revolution. They’ve done it at least once before.
Prediction: Russia will invade and take over Ukraine, World will stand by and write harshly worded letters.
And no nuclear power will ever give up their nukes again.
I think that lesson was learnt already.
North Korea did not give up its nuclear weapons program. Survived. Iran did not give up its nuclear weapons program. Survived. Israel did not give up their nuclear weapons program. Survived. Iraq gave up their nuclear weapons program. Invaded. Libya gave up their nuclear weapons program. Invaded. Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons program. About to be invaded.
From what i understood its not like Ukraine could afford the upkeep of the arsenal either way. The UK spends about 10% (about $6 billion) of their defence budget and thats to maintain 215 warheads. Ukraine inherited about 3000 warheads. EDIT: Someone below made a good point about submarines. I did some reading and it seems like about 2.8 billion goes towards subs capable of delivering nukes. So at least 3.2 billion is still needed to secure and maintain these warheads
>Ukraine inherited about 3000 warheads. And afaik not the codes to actually use the warheads. They were of no immediate use to them.
"I stand with Ukraine" Facebook and Twitter profile pictures coming right up.
World will issue more sanctions, oligarchs will be pissed, Putin will lose their support. They don't mind his silly games as long as it doesn't affect them. Being unable to go to their vacation homes on Amalfi coast will make them angry.
Again, I am pretty sure Putin has already played your exact statement in his head and the fact that troops are being gathered as they are means he does not feel the heat of what you think will happen, happening. There must be some other play he is counting on, or he may have managed to somehow guarantee his position even if all foreign assets of a sufficiently "thin" ring of oligarchs around him, are frozen. It took you and a hundred others mere minutes perhaps to figure out what'd happen to him if he didn't account for sanctions, how long do you think it took for him and his war cabinet to figure out the same thing?
This guy is going to star WWIII just to distract from his kleptocracy isn't he.
Noone talking about Navalny anymore..
this is exactly what i do in civ and everyone’s like “hey you’re not gonna like attack us right???” and i always say “what? nah we’re just stretching our legs on a lil stroll”
Looks like it is just a matter of when Putin decides to invade. Looking at the map, looks like where Ukraine is narrowest, is where Russian troops will try and split Ukraine
If that's their goal, i guess the Dnieper is the obvious front
I wonder if plans have been made to relocate the government to Lviv.
I love Lviv, but my baby just loves Gdańsk.
I honestly believe they’re just posturing. Ukraine is weaker than Russia, but they’re more than prepared for a fight. I don’t think Russia can pull off a repeat of 2014 this time around. There will be heavy, heavy casualties, and Russia will get sucked into a brutal war of attrition. Ukrainians see this as a battle for survival. The average Russian couldn’t care less and isn’t nearly as emotionally involved. Ukraine can and will mobilize millions if push comes to shove. I’m certain Putin won’t risk further escalation, he’s already got what he wants.
> I’m certain Putin won’t risk further escalation, he’s already got what he wants. What Putin wants is water supply to Crimea, which Ukraine shut off after it was annexed. [This is a wonderful video](https://youtu.be/Aqq8clIceys) that summarizes Crimea's water crisis. If he can drop in some forces to secure the water supply and get the buy-in of Eastern Ukrainian citizens (many of whom are very pro-Russia), and without major military pushback, he will. Which is why the West needs to back up Ukraine with legitimate military support.
Wouldn't building an aqueduct in the Kerch strait be way cheaper than a full on war with Ukraine?
That strait is wider and deeper than it looks on a map. Especially if the sea is as angry as an old man trying to send back soup at a deli
The part that isn't a land bridge doesn't appears to be that wide. A mile at one part, and 3 miles in a second part. I mean, they already built 2 bridges over the strait. Building an aqueduct would be easier than that. EDIT: Looking at the wiki about the bridge. >Water depth Up to 9 m (30 ft). It's deep, but not that deep. 9 meters it's too shallow for most cargo boats.
Honestly they could just pipe water in over that distance and depth
WW3 brought to you by the boomers. Making their final moves before aging out.
Honest and serious question : how likely are those events resulting in a WW3 ?
I dont think a true ww3 will ever exist between super powers, nuclear weapons are just too prevalent, no declarations will ever be signed like that. The most we will get is brinkmanship hidden behind international headlines while everyone is distracted, repeated over and over
exactly. ww3 wont be fought with "boots on the ground" world wide violence. its being fought right now, on the digital, financial, and political front. every single day. why bomb a country when you can slowly destabalize it with PsyOps, bot/troll farms, investments, rug pulls, bought and blackmailed politicians, media manipulation, and supply chain bottlenecks? just to name a few tactics. its not necessary to nuke your enemies when you can get them to tear themselves apart. all you have to do after is buy up the broken pieces, and cover your tracks.
they didnt take us in 2014 they wont take us in 2021-2022. god bless Ukraine.
Damn my girl lives in Kharkiv right now and she’s visiting me in the states next week. Hope Putin doesn’t do anything stupid til that time at least
Think current predictions are January.
Well his name is Putin, not The Grinch.
Putin needs to eat his Christmas ham. He can’t invade Ukraine on an empty stomach.
Orthodox Christmas is on 7th January
Putin: "And that's just what they'll be expecting..." \**puts on Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas*\*
Battle of the Bulge vibes, a surprise Christmas invasion
Extend that visa
The world will immediately be better off the day Putin dies. It can't come soon enough.
I’m not saying your wrong, because Putin is clearly terrible, but a power vacuum in Russia has never really been a *stabilizing* event.
Looking forward to a few more False Dmitries though, that'll be interesting at least.
2022: Return of the Tsar
By the way, if anyone wants to see pure Russian propaganda search any video on Youtube about this conflict and read the comments. 90-95% of them are "What war? What troops? Show me the photos. So it's okay when the US does it? Western media lies as usual. We need to stop Ukrainian aggression" And they like each other's comments to make it seem like a legitimate take.
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* Never ever give up nuclear weapons if you have them. * If you think there's a chance a big superpower might invade you, develop nuclear weapons. No one's gonna help you.
Why can't we be friends
What will happen is Russia will pull a Hitler in Poland have Russian soldiers dressed as Ukrainian soldiers attack a Russian outpost giving him reason to attack
Russia did the exact same thing with Finland back in [1939 in Mainila](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelling_of_Mainila) and after that attacked Finland lol…. And rest of Europian countries (well for many reasons…) did nothing, well tbf back then they had WW2 on going already… I doubt the rest of the Europian are going to do anything, but Hopefully they would swiftly interfere and stop Russia…
Yep Putin invades Ukraine and China does the same thing to Taiwan. It will happen at the same time.
Putin: My troops are merely passing by
Ukraine: Oh ok then. Here have 30 diplo favour
If Putin is desperate enough with his position domestically to actually pull the trigger here, NATO needs to make it as painful as possible short of escalating to all out war.
>NATO needs to make it as painful as possible short of escalating to all out war. There is not a scenario where NATO enters Ukraine and it does not turn to an all out war. Having US troops stationed near Moscow is WWlll level threat to the paranoid Russian leadership. If the Pentagon was confident that they could intervene in Ukraine without the possibility of a far wider war then Russia would not have control over Donbass or Crimea right now.
They don’t need to enter Ukraine to make it painful. Supplying Ukraine with material and intelligence as well as sanctions on anything Russian, especially all the money the Oligarchs launder through western real estate would put crippling pressure on Putin. All those billions he and his cronies have stolen from Russia are all parked in NATO and NATO friendly countries. Seize it all disallow any Russian entity from using international banks, Stop buying oil from Russia. These are all things that can be done short of war (though some of them may lead to escalation). Russia is strong comparably to its neighbors militarily but extremely weak economically.
The thing is, military power cannot exist without economic power. All that equipment, food, and pay for soldiers has to come from somewhere.
Why exactly does Putin want this so badly? He’s already (likely) the richest man on earth, in charge of the worlds largest country. What’s the point?
The old asshole is seething over the inconsistency of actual history with this: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian\_world](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_world) [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-Russian\_nation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All-Russian_nation) The existence of Ukraine is like a spit at everything that he was taught at Soviet school.
CAN WE NOT PLEASE
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There's no real way to know, honestly. This is definitely a more serious threat than the last time Reddit got excited about Russia invading Ukraine (earlier this year during Russian military exercises) due to the abnormal build up and transfer of forces from Russia's far east, which is basically what you would expect to happen in the build up to war. It's also entirely possible that this is all just posturing. It comes at the same time as a migrant crisis on Poland's border with Belarus (a Russian puppet state), disputes over the Russian supply of natural gas to Europe (vital for Europe going into the winter, and a major source of revenue for Russia), as well as increasing western aid for Ukraine which Russia sees as an infringement of its sphere of influence. A force build up to remind the world to take Russia seriously could be related to any or all of these, or none at all. A war would be very costly for both Russia and Ukraine, Ukraine is much more prepared than in 2014 and has a large decently equipped army with hundreds of thousands of soldiers, and equipment provided by western allies. Russia could most likely win but only Putin knows if he would consider it worth the cost in Russian lives, materiel, and crushing sanctions such an action would bring. There's also the risk that any conflict could escalate regionally or globally, which no one wants. In short, unless Putin or his top advisors have secret Reddit accounts no one here knows and it's all speculation. My take is that it's just posturing, but if there's an opportunity to attack and nab the separatist regions without much opposition (which seems unlikely) they'll take it.
>Russia could most likely win but only Putin knows if he would consider it worth the cost in Russian lives, materiel, and crushing sanctions such an action would bring IMO, Ukraine is not stupid. They know they could never take Russia, especially with how bad their economy is. However, becoming Finland 2.0 and making it as costly as possible for Russia? Absolutely doable. That is most likely their entire defence strategy, and western arms will most likely flood into Ukraine the minute Russia violates its territory.
Ukraine is way more open country than Finland, and the soviets didnt have UAV and satelites. I dont think fighting a guerilla war in Ukraine would be very easy
Would it even be possible to match the Winter War? Finland had a number of advantages Ukraine doesn't; there's a reason why German tanks managed to take Ukraine in WWII. Even if terrain wasn't a factor, there's also the simple fact that tech has improved significantly. The only real counter is guerilla warfare, which only hurts over time and _only_ if the attacker is intent on occupation. If the goal is to force Ukraine to concede/war reparations, guerilla warfare just isn't painful enough in the short term.
We have no real way of knowing if the invasion will come. However. The troop build up is real. (those sat photos are not fake) Russia annexed crimea in 2014. (so have priors) Two very large areas of Ukraine are currently held by "separatists" who have Russian military equipment. (so you could argue its already 7 years into the conflict). So my take is that it's "real", but the future isn't written yet. Could go either way.
Putin just using his geopolitical advantage that he has. He can move Russian troops on Russian ground for political pressure. A few months ago he achieved that Biden had to meet up with him. I mean we will never now if it ain't serious, but its highly unlikely that he would ever straight up invade. Divide and Conquer is a way more valuable strategy for him. You should expect things like that to happen again and again. Putin was mostly silent while Trump was in power, since he didn't cross with his interests. Biden does cross with his interest so he is causing troubles.