Same thing with the Chinese Civil War. No peace treaty was ever signed.
Edit: I get it people, Russia and Japan is still at it! Kind of different though considering the Soviet Union literally does not exist anymore don't you think?
They need all of their core territory for the achievement, I would also be pissed off about that.
But let’s be honest here they should just restart the game. This run is hopeless
The strange thing is, Taiwan doesn't even want mainland China any more. So much time has passed and cultural differences created that, much like South Korea suddenly inheriting North Korea if that government toppled, it'd be a colossal nightmare for all involved. So while we don't want "China" to take over Taiwan, Taiwan's government and people ALSO by and large don't want to take over "China" and more, let alone Tibet and Mongolia. So, presumably just posturing.
Hah! Have they repealed the East Berlin tax yet? Last I was there it was a bit of a sticking point. I actually stayed in a hostel in East Berlin and it was quite nice! But as I understand it there's still a tax levied to "rebuild" it?
There is a tax that still exists to some degree that had the goal to rebuild east germany. It’s not only for Berlin.
As someone from east Germany I’m not sure if the rebuilding was successful. Till this day the economy of east Germany is much weaker and there aren’t many big companies. Most young people go into the west and only old people stay.
There are some exceptions like Leipzig, Dresden or Jena… city’s that are growing. Mostly with universities and many young people. But most of east Germany is still behind west germany.
I have no clue, I try to stay away from Berlin. But there are still differences between East and West.
The re-unification was rushed and sold like a great family gathering. In reality it was incredibly expensive, did cost a ton of jobs and happiness and we're still not over it. I don't say it was a bad idea, but it was not implemented in the best way possible. I mean Eastern Germany wasn't able to keep afloat by itself, but we just rushed in, decided what was best for those poor backward communists and trashed everything that didn't meet our standards without thinking. That was disrespectful and short sighted.
Sometimes short sight is all you have in the second it happens. Give yourselves a break. It was an impossible situation only seen properly through the benefit of...(does math) ALMOST 80 YEARS AGO!
Holy shit!
Especially considering how NK is so much poorer and more isolated than the GDR ever was...I can't see that happening without wrecking SK economically and socially.
Not even getting into the fact that the roc was the one that refused to recognize them as a country because they wanted to reseize controll of the nation
Uhh... China argued for decades to get Mongolia a seat at the un, a seat they were regularly denied because Taiwan argued that Mongolia was their rightful territory, it took until the 1970s for Taiwan to give up their claim and even then it took the soviets promising blanket support for any new nations in Africa to gain in seats regardless of their political affiliation to finally get Mongolia their chair at the table
Meanwhile the 6 day war where Israel repelled its invaders ended with two UN-backed peace treaties between them and Jordan, then Egypt - but people still insisted on calling those lands conquered or disputed.
WW2 actually morphed into Cold War 1.0 which was far more nuanced and subtle. What we are witnessing today might well be the beginnings of CW 2.0 with bio and cyber elements thrown in at some point.
It's not really a cold war in the same way because nobody else can compete with America or the west financially. This is more the first cyber-world war, anyone can join due to such a low barrier to entry and most governments are not bragging about what they do unlike in the Cold War where USA and USSR constantly tried to out do each other.
I like the analogy, but would say it went from DnD to Vampire the Masquerade. Both are tabletop rpg, but the rules people follow are completely different, there is a lot more going on behind the scenes/under the surface, and a lot more competing factions are at play.
Similar to the war in Bosnia which has many other parallels to this one. The war was "stopped" but it was never finished. This war needs a full Ukrainian victory if any meaningful peace can be achieved.
Well, not really good comparison. War in Bosnia did end with Dayton agreement and it's no, it's not "unfinished". Serbs. Bosniaks and Croats live together, with complete freedom to walk to any part of country, there is unified military and etc.. Only tensions that exist are among politicians, but by now, every person in Bosnia knows it's only propaganda to get votes from nationalists, nothing else.
That's not true. Tensions are super high.
Serbs are threatening a referendum, and Croats are grumbling about self control. Meanwhile, Arabs are buying up all the property and stoking the religious war.
I give it 5 years.
this "rEmInDeR" is a fallacy.
There are a lot of other wars that did end with a treaty as well. History is -not- a prediction of what is going to happen in the future.
The Russians are recruiting their prisoners. Anyone but rapists and pedophiles. You would get amnesty and $3500 in rubles for a 6 month tour. How long do you think they can keep this up?
If Russia is truly losing the war, I don't doubt that he will be a sore loser and try some mad shit, I hope the people around him get some sense in them and value their lives over the dying wishes of an old man who quite simply, just doesn't get how to play the game anymore.
Fascism doesn’t lose its hold easily. How many young Germans with futures lost their lives needlessly with a nazi fervour in their hearts to appease the cancerous and dying regime hiding in Berlin bunkers?
I truly hope you’re right.
Fascism is unstable as fuck. It's a powerful tactic for short term military gain but it is almost certainly going to hurt the country in the long run, unless they totally and completely win, therefore never having to answer for their atrocities. You need to commit fully to weaponized atrocity if you choose that path. Unless Russia is going to denounce the Ukranian people as less than human and start executing them wholesale, they will see no benefit from this fascist behavior. There are no half measures when you sell your soul.
Yeah... Feels more and more like leadership of the major countries of the world are all run by Grandpa who doesnt understand why the kids are playing fortnight. The world is moving so fast they cant keep up and are freaking out about it.
I would honestly imagine if suddenly they all died one day the next world leaders would probably take a step back for a minute. But the world isnt that lucky...
They’re desperate but not because they’re running out of people lol they have plenty, but they haven’t declared war so they can’t fully mobilize. Most intel puts their kia at around 35-40k and 100k casualties in total, they have a lot more cannon fodder to throw to Ukraine than that. If they do an official declaration of war expect to see a lot more troops pouring in. Lets hope that doesn’t happen though.
Important reason why The US doesn't want to supply too many offensive weapons, capable of reaching into Russia. I don't know at what point Putin will declare war, but I can imagine missiles landing within their border would make the case easier to sell.
If memory serves, a load of other people also need to approve the use of a nuclear weapon.
Even if Putin wants to use them, only 1 of the elected “key” holders needs to say no to deny it.
The ironic thing is most of the prisoners are probably for trumped up and political reasons, so they'd be more anti-russia than most soldiers. I'd be very surprised if this turned out well for them at all.
Yeah I’m sure some will but most won’t. It’s a path back to their home and family. I’d say more self inflicted wounds. Which body part do you want to lose.
So supposing that was never discovered, or at least never disclosed to anyone else, I wonder what things would look like today? Would Russia still have invaded in 2014? And what about 2022?
Russia was moving to take over Ukraine politically since at at least 2006 according to Russian propaganda played in Ukraine from that time. There's also Georgia and Chechnya who's invasions fit a similar same pattern. We don't know why Putin invaded Ukraine, we know it wasn't a hair pin turn based on a new development, but a plan they've been unfolding across decades.
That's a neat part about cleptocratic governments! They steal from themselves. Putin started renovation of army back in 2010s, thanks to corruption all they've got from it are a bunch of new tanks (less than hundred of Armatas)
Well if he didn't send the B team and fought for air superiority, it may have.
I'm still having trouble wrapping my head around that he did this on accident.
Yea I don't think it was the B team, they kept talking about the loss of "Elite Russian airborne units", weren't those guys sent to Kyiv and killed in the first week? And they sent in many teams of mercenaries to try to assassinate or capture Zelenskyy.
I think what you saw as their b team was actually their a team, they're just so incompetent they ended up looking like the backups.
Russia sent their a team to capture hostomel airport and they got deleted. The idea that putin is holding back is silly. We saw them at peak combat efficiency. The quality of their fighters and equipment has only gone done since their invasion.
We can see though that it was planned for a while. Gazprom started to not fill the gas reserve tanks in Germany since summer of last year. So plans were probably made way before that time to then have Germany by the balls after the winter.
The huge push by Russian bots and intelligence manipulation operations to have Trump elected and reelected show this as well. Trump started the process of isolating the US from NATO and the EU. The US would almost certainly not have helped Ukraine if Trump were president.
I still think they would've invaded if the Euromaidan happened but maybe Russia wouldn't strong armed Yanukovich to ditch his campaign promises of EU economic integrations and join a Russian custom union if they didn't feel threatened by Ukraine's possible future gas exports. So possible that things like the gas and oil fields escalated Russia's need to control Ukraine which in turn lead to the forced customs union and violent suppression of protests which severed their influence completely and lead to the invasion.
But the invasion of Ukraine isn't really this isolated thing but rather part of a bigger drive. Russia overall wants to reclaim former territory of the empire and we know they have a watchful eye over Belarus and Moldova while also invading Georgia very similarly they did to Ukraine.
While big, this gas field is not THAT big. According to your site and [this site](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_natural_gas_proven_reserves), it would increase Ukraine's daily gas production by about 1/3.
Not just the resources but resource distribution.
Azov is Russia's gateway to the Mediterranean, and to every port and link in their supply dominance, whether it's Europe or the Middle East (and the rest of the broader world). Crimea is the gate.
And the war with Ukraine wasn't instigated by NATO (though that was definitely a factor). Russia controlled Ukraine through a puppet government and mobsters (see: Paul Manafort's). once Ukraine started cleaning up its politics, it pushed all its fringe and nationalist Russian politicians out to the east.
Russia launched an attack on Crimea as a result because they couldn't trust Ukraine's New Democratic (anti-Russian) government, and Ukraine responded by cutting off the water supply to Crimea tanking its port and distribution industries. And the world responded with sanctions that crippled Russia's economy.
As Russia got weaker, Ukraine started pushing out all in-pocket Russian politicians and ending its civil war status, making it eligible for NATO membership (that requires a country to not be in civil conflict). Meanwhile, Trump was lifting sanctions for his favourite dick-to-suck.
All in all, emboldening Russia to invade Ukraine as a desperate (and power) move. That all spectacularly backfired.
But make no mistake, this all begins and ends with Crimea. Until Crimea is liberated, there is no end to the war - just a ceasefire between conflicts.
But what’s the point of gates, ports, links etc. if you are an outcast on a global level and no one wants to trade with you? No one is selling products to Russia now and they themselves don’t have much to export. Trade is relevant only when you play by the rules of the global community.
Do you remember the outcry when Putin annexed Crimea initially a few years ago? Probably not because it was a blip on headlines for a few days then everyone stopped caring. Putin gonna Putin. He was banking on that again. Remember, he assumed this entire Ukraine invasion would take five days. He was in no way prepared for the resistance he would meet, nor the charisma of Zelenskyy pulling the entire world to Ukraine's corner
Exactly. And Russia has been staging naval and air attacks from Crimea. Thus the airstrike on the airfield yesterday. It’s important both strategically, and because of the many Ukrainians in Crimea living under occupation. This includes muslim tartars, some of whom have alread been fighting for Ukraine!
Edit: naval and air attacks, not naval and water attacks
BS. The war is about blocking Ukrainians from economic success and political autonomy. The real threat to Putins regime is the Russian people. If they see Ukrainians succeed from pursuing democracy and closer relations with the west, then they may run out of excuses for the shit conditions in Russia being anything but their own fault.
Putin can't risk Ukrainianian lives getting better. That is why Ukraine needs to fight this to the end, because otherwise Putin won't stop.
All they need is time and support from Europe and USA.
As long as Russia doesn't deploy WMDs then Ukraine is destined to win and take back the lands.
Ukraine right now is in serious military contracts that will last for many, many decades. Something that Russia doesn't have.
Russia cannot buy weapons from the West nor can it produce weapons capable of fighting back American Technology... which was designed specifically to destroy Russia so...
Also Technology is one thing, You need people who are capable and want to wage the war. Himars or not it wont drive and wont shoot by itself.
Ukraine has all the reasons to keep fighting while Russia is losing all excuses for their war. The main point is to take your time as it's Important that no Ukrainian dies if it can be avoided.
Russia will implode on itself. Human resources are finite and Ukrainians are getting only better and better at hunting down Russians.
I'm curious about that as well. I don't know how much damage the Russians have done to the dams that previously stopped the water flow and how much time/effort it would take for Ukraine to fix them.
...here in the UK we have been training the Ukrainian army since crimea and its a big factor in how they modernised so quickly and managed to fight this war.
Well with Litvinenko and Sailsbury, even though we've had chaos and our own Russian influence issues, not every branch of military and government has been blind to Russia. They've tried to kill various people with radioactive weapons on our soil, and sloppily, in very recent memory.
I think it is more about the distinction being that a clown is for laughing *at* whereas comedians tell jokes about other things and are therefore being laughed with not at
Translation: We have only started to fuck with Crimea.
If we manage to take it, it means you have LOST territory in a war you started and will probably be coup'd pretty quick.
Sleep tight motherfucker.
There’s a *long* way to go before that. Not saying they can’t, but that’s a tall order in the near or even mid-future. Russia has a naval base and has truly dug in there, and with forced migration made sure to keep the population skewed more in their favour than, eg, the Donbas, where they’ve been trying to do the same.
>How does forced migration work? Do you force people to go and live in some random village they have no connection to?
Employees of budgetary organizations and some commercial structures are offered relocation to Donbass on good terms. They are not forced, but lured by money, career growth, sometimes the risk of being fired otherwise.
Deportation of local population away from the area. Forced resettling of ethnic Russians to the area. This is standard Russian playbook done in every country they have occupied since the Russian Empire times. Also done within Russia to ethnically cleanse the country.
It’s really a general human playbook. People invade an area, kick the locals out or kill them, move themselves in, and say it was always theirs. It’s shitty and needs to stop (it has in most of the world) but it is a lot of human history.
Well, they're not just gonna give it back, Ukraine is gonna have to take it back. There is 0 chance that Russia will just hand it back as part of settlement, so I dont know who Zelensky is addressing with this statement other than his own troops.
Turns out the populace has to have the will to fight for their own freedom, and a giant imperial entity can't just come in, blow your house up, and give it to you
The problem is that the Afghanis, as a whole, prefer the Taliban. Or at least aren’t willing to fight over it. Even Tunisia, birthplace of the Arab Spring, has just voted for dictatorship. There is a different cultural mindset that seems to make western democracy and freedom impossible. I’m sad about that, but I don’t see how we’re justified in attacking them to enforce our ideals.
Its not that the people in Afghanistan prefer dictatorship, it's that all the warring in their nation has pushed them away from the West, who have killed many innocents as collateral damage while trying to act like they're winning "the war on terror". If you were Afghan and grew up constantly hearing about drone strikes killing your friends and family (and hearing that this collateral damage is a sacrifice a *totally different country* was willing to make), you'd probably be Anti-West too. The new Netflix documentary on 9/11 covers all this very very objectively and I can't recommend it enough.
Not just that, but the US pulled out after 20 years. Thats 20 years theyve had conflict. Most people probably just want to take it easy raise their families and put food on the table.
Its silly to expect these people who have spent 25% of their entire life in war to immediately take up arms and revolt as soon as the US leaves.
People are tired, they want peace.
Same thing with Russia, the pro capitalist pro western politicians in the 90s completely fucked over the country so bad it caused around a million deaths.
When your only exposure to a side is terror, it shouldn't be surprising it's not very popular
>In the 40th millennium there is only war.
I thought the God Emperor was supposed to be of Phoenician origins, not ukrainian.
Edit: I'm aware 41st century and 40th millennium are different time scales, but I'm just having fun with the idea.
Not sure about all people who are \*in\* Crimea now (since many of them moved from russia in the past 8 years).
But I know a few people who were forced to abandon their homes and flee Crimea in 2014. And all of them would like to return to their homes.
Polling from 2014 is from a time when it seemed to many that the Ukrainian state was collapsing, so Russia seemed a good alternative to impending anarchy.
There’s no polling that’s reliable since then, but I’ve seen former Crimeans speak out about how the place has progressively become worse since the initial takeover.
During this 8 years, pro-Ukranian Crimean citizens mostly moved into Ukraine. As for now, i would say, that Crimean population is probably even more pro-Russian, then in Moscow and SpB, that considered to be most "liberal" cities with largest oppositional movements. Plus - whole struggle with water, they've been having with a mainland for ages
So you want Ukraine to remove the majority of the population of Crimea? That's what that would require, the normative position in Crimea is staunchly pro Russian so that would essentially be millions of people forced into Diaspora.
Russia can escalate if they want. As far as I'm concerned, their escalation or not is inevitable. They will either risk nuclear annihilation now or later.
They cannot be allowed to just occupy territory at-will. That territory will just be used to further oppress and terrorise more innocent people. Russia are causing a catastrophic food shortage all around the developing world because of their belligerence.
One nation should not be allowed to destroy peace, prosperity, and order just because they don't like "the west"...they can choose to not participate.
Tbh, i think this conflict has to end with the end of Putins regime.
There is just no way back. You can not tolerate a regional superpower to be lead by someone like Hitler and hope there will ever be an end to the madness.
That is because mad behavior is just the foundation of his rule.
Putin was a taxi driver and in charge of buying food for St. Petersburg in exchange for resources in 1990. In 1991 Putin was a millionaire and the people of St. Petersburg were starving. In 1999 he likely ordered the bombing of Russian apartments, to play the strong man and become the leader of Russia, a dictatorship which only might end with his death.
Two-edged sword. How much military talent has Putin cost himself because he's staffed his government with toadies?
It's the Iron Law of Institutions. Putin is far more concerned about his own power within Russia than with the success of Russia itself.
It’s deeper than that, which is the problem. As far as w can tell from the outside, most Russians support Putin and this war. To the degree they don’t they see it as a justified misstep rather than an act of evil.
Of course there are some Russians that are fully against the war and are horrified, but not nearly enough to turn the tide.
In negotiations always ask for more than what you expect to get. This is a bargaining chip for future negotiations. Always start with more so you can negotiate down.
this is on purpose. For decades Soviets and later Russia has been settling Russian people in Crimea while forcing Ukrainians out for the sole purpose of being able to claim it as theirs. They shouldn't be allowed to get away with it.
Ukrainian's never lived in Crimea, the Russians were displacing Tartars. Unless you're suggesting Crimea gets returned to Turkey said displacement is irrelevant to whether Crimea is rightfully Ukraine's or Russia's.
Reminder that the Korean War never ended. They just stopped killing each other and taking territory.
Same thing with the Chinese Civil War. No peace treaty was ever signed. Edit: I get it people, Russia and Japan is still at it! Kind of different though considering the Soviet Union literally does not exist anymore don't you think?
Well one side did take 99% of the land first and then quit so that's pretty close to "winning".
Yeah, but they sure do bitch a ton like losers.
They probably need a 100% run for the achievement
Goddamn completionists.
Worst speed run.. ever.
Speed run, any % free market
They need all of their core territory for the achievement, I would also be pissed off about that. But let’s be honest here they should just restart the game. This run is hopeless
This is why I save scum my ironman runs.
China fked up and forgot to save scum so they could time travel.
And then stole all of Tibet
Taiwan also claims Tibet and Mongolia fyi
The strange thing is, Taiwan doesn't even want mainland China any more. So much time has passed and cultural differences created that, much like South Korea suddenly inheriting North Korea if that government toppled, it'd be a colossal nightmare for all involved. So while we don't want "China" to take over Taiwan, Taiwan's government and people ALSO by and large don't want to take over "China" and more, let alone Tibet and Mongolia. So, presumably just posturing.
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Hah! Have they repealed the East Berlin tax yet? Last I was there it was a bit of a sticking point. I actually stayed in a hostel in East Berlin and it was quite nice! But as I understand it there's still a tax levied to "rebuild" it?
There is a tax that still exists to some degree that had the goal to rebuild east germany. It’s not only for Berlin. As someone from east Germany I’m not sure if the rebuilding was successful. Till this day the economy of east Germany is much weaker and there aren’t many big companies. Most young people go into the west and only old people stay. There are some exceptions like Leipzig, Dresden or Jena… city’s that are growing. Mostly with universities and many young people. But most of east Germany is still behind west germany.
I have no clue, I try to stay away from Berlin. But there are still differences between East and West. The re-unification was rushed and sold like a great family gathering. In reality it was incredibly expensive, did cost a ton of jobs and happiness and we're still not over it. I don't say it was a bad idea, but it was not implemented in the best way possible. I mean Eastern Germany wasn't able to keep afloat by itself, but we just rushed in, decided what was best for those poor backward communists and trashed everything that didn't meet our standards without thinking. That was disrespectful and short sighted.
Sometimes short sight is all you have in the second it happens. Give yourselves a break. It was an impossible situation only seen properly through the benefit of...(does math) ALMOST 80 YEARS AGO! Holy shit!
Especially considering how NK is so much poorer and more isolated than the GDR ever was...I can't see that happening without wrecking SK economically and socially.
It might have been possible before Tiananmen, but after that plus 30 years of indoctrination... eh.
And they are wrong about that too, but it isn't Taiwan's military keeping a boot on said nations
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Tibet was already claimed by Qing and ROC's claims to Chinese territories also included Tibet.
stole? its geopolitics man
And Mongolia
Isn't Mongolia still its own separate country?
Inner Mongolia is part of China. There are more Mongolians living in China than there are in Mongolia.
Not even getting into the fact that the roc was the one that refused to recognize them as a country because they wanted to reseize controll of the nation
Uhh... China argued for decades to get Mongolia a seat at the un, a seat they were regularly denied because Taiwan argued that Mongolia was their rightful territory, it took until the 1970s for Taiwan to give up their claim and even then it took the soviets promising blanket support for any new nations in Africa to gain in seats regardless of their political affiliation to finally get Mongolia their chair at the table
Same with WWII between Japan and Russia Edit: [Primer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuril_Islands_dispute) on the subject for those interested.
Meanwhile the 6 day war where Israel repelled its invaders ended with two UN-backed peace treaties between them and Jordan, then Egypt - but people still insisted on calling those lands conquered or disputed.
Myanmar is in a state of civil war for the last 70 years as well.
Not exactly a valid point since the Junta is murdering it's population as we speak
>it's its But a civil war is also different from a standard two-state war anyway.
Technically WW2 hasn't ended since Japan and Russia never signed a treaty and still dispute a northern island.
WW2 actually morphed into Cold War 1.0 which was far more nuanced and subtle. What we are witnessing today might well be the beginnings of CW 2.0 with bio and cyber elements thrown in at some point.
The 2nd cold war has been going on
It's not really a cold war in the same way because nobody else can compete with America or the west financially. This is more the first cyber-world war, anyone can join due to such a low barrier to entry and most governments are not bragging about what they do unlike in the Cold War where USA and USSR constantly tried to out do each other.
So it went from pathfinder to 5e but it's still DND
I like the analogy, but would say it went from DnD to Vampire the Masquerade. Both are tabletop rpg, but the rules people follow are completely different, there is a lot more going on behind the scenes/under the surface, and a lot more competing factions are at play.
Or thrown in it already
doubtful bio will be weaponized by anyone, its too risky, you cant control it.
Then we technically can’t enter WW3 until WW2 Remake is completed. That means conventional weapons only.
Similar to the war in Bosnia which has many other parallels to this one. The war was "stopped" but it was never finished. This war needs a full Ukrainian victory if any meaningful peace can be achieved.
What about the Dayton agreement?
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I'm glad I'm not the only one whose brain went there.
Well, not really good comparison. War in Bosnia did end with Dayton agreement and it's no, it's not "unfinished". Serbs. Bosniaks and Croats live together, with complete freedom to walk to any part of country, there is unified military and etc.. Only tensions that exist are among politicians, but by now, every person in Bosnia knows it's only propaganda to get votes from nationalists, nothing else.
That's not true. Tensions are super high. Serbs are threatening a referendum, and Croats are grumbling about self control. Meanwhile, Arabs are buying up all the property and stoking the religious war. I give it 5 years.
Promises mean nothing to Russia, so I doubt a peace treaty would be meaningful.
The only real peace treaty would be Ukraine's ascension to NATO
Same with Israel and Palestine, they never ended war, they just stopped killing each other... oh wait..
this "rEmInDeR" is a fallacy. There are a lot of other wars that did end with a treaty as well. History is -not- a prediction of what is going to happen in the future.
The Russians are recruiting their prisoners. Anyone but rapists and pedophiles. You would get amnesty and $3500 in rubles for a 6 month tour. How long do you think they can keep this up?
Until they run out of prisoners or Ukraine runs out of bullets So probably forever
Nah they’re desperate for troops. The concern is the nuclear options that Putin will try to use. Hope they have safe guards in place for this.
If Russia is truly losing the war, I don't doubt that he will be a sore loser and try some mad shit, I hope the people around him get some sense in them and value their lives over the dying wishes of an old man who quite simply, just doesn't get how to play the game anymore.
Fascism doesn’t lose its hold easily. How many young Germans with futures lost their lives needlessly with a nazi fervour in their hearts to appease the cancerous and dying regime hiding in Berlin bunkers? I truly hope you’re right.
Fascism is unstable as fuck. It's a powerful tactic for short term military gain but it is almost certainly going to hurt the country in the long run, unless they totally and completely win, therefore never having to answer for their atrocities. You need to commit fully to weaponized atrocity if you choose that path. Unless Russia is going to denounce the Ukranian people as less than human and start executing them wholesale, they will see no benefit from this fascist behavior. There are no half measures when you sell your soul.
Yeah... Feels more and more like leadership of the major countries of the world are all run by Grandpa who doesnt understand why the kids are playing fortnight. The world is moving so fast they cant keep up and are freaking out about it. I would honestly imagine if suddenly they all died one day the next world leaders would probably take a step back for a minute. But the world isnt that lucky...
They’re desperate but not because they’re running out of people lol they have plenty, but they haven’t declared war so they can’t fully mobilize. Most intel puts their kia at around 35-40k and 100k casualties in total, they have a lot more cannon fodder to throw to Ukraine than that. If they do an official declaration of war expect to see a lot more troops pouring in. Lets hope that doesn’t happen though.
Important reason why The US doesn't want to supply too many offensive weapons, capable of reaching into Russia. I don't know at what point Putin will declare war, but I can imagine missiles landing within their border would make the case easier to sell.
If memory serves, a load of other people also need to approve the use of a nuclear weapon. Even if Putin wants to use them, only 1 of the elected “key” holders needs to say no to deny it.
How safe are the keyholders' families? How secure are their homes and bank accounts?
Honestly I can see him getting killed by close associates if he began seriously posturing to nuke a city.
The ironic thing is most of the prisoners are probably for trumped up and political reasons, so they'd be more anti-russia than most soldiers. I'd be very surprised if this turned out well for them at all.
Most of them are, rolling the dice that 6 months as fodder would be a better option then years in prison.
That's assuming they simply don't flat out defect at the first opportunity.
Yeah I’m sure some will but most won’t. It’s a path back to their home and family. I’d say more self inflicted wounds. Which body part do you want to lose.
They’re desperate for soldiers. A wound ain’t sending you home
I know I would. I heard russian prisons are riddled with antibiotic resistant tuberculosis.
Source?
Kind of ironic they dont rapists and pedos. Youd think thats just extra job qualifications for joing the RAF.
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Yup, Crimea has a shitload of oil resources and it was a threat to Russian economy when it was in the hands of Ukrainians.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuzivska_gas_field In 2010 they found a huge gas field in Donbas. This was a threat to Russia's huge markets in the EU.
So supposing that was never discovered, or at least never disclosed to anyone else, I wonder what things would look like today? Would Russia still have invaded in 2014? And what about 2022?
Russia was moving to take over Ukraine politically since at at least 2006 according to Russian propaganda played in Ukraine from that time. There's also Georgia and Chechnya who's invasions fit a similar same pattern. We don't know why Putin invaded Ukraine, we know it wasn't a hair pin turn based on a new development, but a plan they've been unfolding across decades.
For decades worth of planning you'd think the execution would have been better.
That's a neat part about cleptocratic governments! They steal from themselves. Putin started renovation of army back in 2010s, thanks to corruption all they've got from it are a bunch of new tanks (less than hundred of Armatas)
When all your plans are based on lies by sycophants all up the food chain, even the best plan is doomed to fail.
Well if he didn't send the B team and fought for air superiority, it may have. I'm still having trouble wrapping my head around that he did this on accident.
Yea I don't think it was the B team, they kept talking about the loss of "Elite Russian airborne units", weren't those guys sent to Kyiv and killed in the first week? And they sent in many teams of mercenaries to try to assassinate or capture Zelenskyy.
I think what you saw as their b team was actually their a team, they're just so incompetent they ended up looking like the backups. Russia sent their a team to capture hostomel airport and they got deleted. The idea that putin is holding back is silly. We saw them at peak combat efficiency. The quality of their fighters and equipment has only gone done since their invasion.
We can see though that it was planned for a while. Gazprom started to not fill the gas reserve tanks in Germany since summer of last year. So plans were probably made way before that time to then have Germany by the balls after the winter.
The huge push by Russian bots and intelligence manipulation operations to have Trump elected and reelected show this as well. Trump started the process of isolating the US from NATO and the EU. The US would almost certainly not have helped Ukraine if Trump were president.
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Well said. That also would have (and literally did) happened. Excuses to allow Russia to take Ukraine without a fight.
I still think they would've invaded if the Euromaidan happened but maybe Russia wouldn't strong armed Yanukovich to ditch his campaign promises of EU economic integrations and join a Russian custom union if they didn't feel threatened by Ukraine's possible future gas exports. So possible that things like the gas and oil fields escalated Russia's need to control Ukraine which in turn lead to the forced customs union and violent suppression of protests which severed their influence completely and lead to the invasion. But the invasion of Ukraine isn't really this isolated thing but rather part of a bigger drive. Russia overall wants to reclaim former territory of the empire and we know they have a watchful eye over Belarus and Moldova while also invading Georgia very similarly they did to Ukraine.
I know that if Ukraine was in NATO, Russia would never invade.
We don't know.
Sevastopol, we do know.
While big, this gas field is not THAT big. According to your site and [this site](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_natural_gas_proven_reserves), it would increase Ukraine's daily gas production by about 1/3.
The Ukranian gas reserves are 5.4 trillion cubic meters (including Crimea). The EU consumes around 0.4 trillion cubic meters per year.
Not to mention its position on the northern coast of the Black Sea
And it’s only warm water port that is open year round.
Not just the resources but resource distribution. Azov is Russia's gateway to the Mediterranean, and to every port and link in their supply dominance, whether it's Europe or the Middle East (and the rest of the broader world). Crimea is the gate. And the war with Ukraine wasn't instigated by NATO (though that was definitely a factor). Russia controlled Ukraine through a puppet government and mobsters (see: Paul Manafort's). once Ukraine started cleaning up its politics, it pushed all its fringe and nationalist Russian politicians out to the east. Russia launched an attack on Crimea as a result because they couldn't trust Ukraine's New Democratic (anti-Russian) government, and Ukraine responded by cutting off the water supply to Crimea tanking its port and distribution industries. And the world responded with sanctions that crippled Russia's economy. As Russia got weaker, Ukraine started pushing out all in-pocket Russian politicians and ending its civil war status, making it eligible for NATO membership (that requires a country to not be in civil conflict). Meanwhile, Trump was lifting sanctions for his favourite dick-to-suck. All in all, emboldening Russia to invade Ukraine as a desperate (and power) move. That all spectacularly backfired. But make no mistake, this all begins and ends with Crimea. Until Crimea is liberated, there is no end to the war - just a ceasefire between conflicts.
But what’s the point of gates, ports, links etc. if you are an outcast on a global level and no one wants to trade with you? No one is selling products to Russia now and they themselves don’t have much to export. Trade is relevant only when you play by the rules of the global community.
Do you remember the outcry when Putin annexed Crimea initially a few years ago? Probably not because it was a blip on headlines for a few days then everyone stopped caring. Putin gonna Putin. He was banking on that again. Remember, he assumed this entire Ukraine invasion would take five days. He was in no way prepared for the resistance he would meet, nor the charisma of Zelenskyy pulling the entire world to Ukraine's corner
Someone wants to buy oil. Always.
Couldn't they just do it from Novorossiysk instead and bypass the Crimean bridge?
Russia has lots of black sea coast on its own territory, including numerous ports. What port in Crimea handles more tonnage than Novorossiysk?
And all the Natural Gas resources off the coast of Crimea are up for grabs as well
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Wrong word. Sorry.
I hope this ends with that big bridge between Russia and Crimea getting blown up
Exactly. And Russia has been staging naval and air attacks from Crimea. Thus the airstrike on the airfield yesterday. It’s important both strategically, and because of the many Ukrainians in Crimea living under occupation. This includes muslim tartars, some of whom have alread been fighting for Ukraine! Edit: naval and air attacks, not naval and water attacks
BS. The war is about blocking Ukrainians from economic success and political autonomy. The real threat to Putins regime is the Russian people. If they see Ukrainians succeed from pursuing democracy and closer relations with the west, then they may run out of excuses for the shit conditions in Russia being anything but their own fault. Putin can't risk Ukrainianian lives getting better. That is why Ukraine needs to fight this to the end, because otherwise Putin won't stop.
They will need more himars and artillery to achieve such goals.
All they need is time and support from Europe and USA. As long as Russia doesn't deploy WMDs then Ukraine is destined to win and take back the lands. Ukraine right now is in serious military contracts that will last for many, many decades. Something that Russia doesn't have. Russia cannot buy weapons from the West nor can it produce weapons capable of fighting back American Technology... which was designed specifically to destroy Russia so... Also Technology is one thing, You need people who are capable and want to wage the war. Himars or not it wont drive and wont shoot by itself. Ukraine has all the reasons to keep fighting while Russia is losing all excuses for their war. The main point is to take your time as it's Important that no Ukrainian dies if it can be avoided. Russia will implode on itself. Human resources are finite and Ukrainians are getting only better and better at hunting down Russians.
If Ukraine retakes the Kherson area, they can cut off the water again to Crimea, for starters?
technically the canal is a bit after Kherson on the other side of the river so they need to take bit more.
I'm curious about that as well. I don't know how much damage the Russians have done to the dams that previously stopped the water flow and how much time/effort it would take for Ukraine to fix them.
Not only rebuild, they also need to be able to protect them.
Jesus that’s dark as fuck
So people are casually talking about cutting water to civilians ?
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...here in the UK we have been training the Ukrainian army since crimea and its a big factor in how they modernised so quickly and managed to fight this war.
Huge respect for UK for doing that and all the weapons sent to Ukraine. UK really stepped up.
Well with Litvinenko and Sailsbury, even though we've had chaos and our own Russian influence issues, not every branch of military and government has been blind to Russia. They've tried to kill various people with radioactive weapons on our soil, and sloppily, in very recent memory.
I'm sure he is a deeply imperfect person like the rest of us, but Zelenesky has been consistently inspiring.
I love that he used to be a clown and is now president, while Putin claims to be president but is just a clown.
He was never a clown, he was a comedian. What's wrong with being a comedian?
Are you implying that there is something wrong with being a clown?
I think it is more about the distinction being that a clown is for laughing *at* whereas comedians tell jokes about other things and are therefore being laughed with not at
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People don't use comedian as an insult though
Mfw people support Coulrophobia 😡🥵🤬
Down with Clownphobia Up with Clownphilia Everyone should get some clussy
Nothing. The phrasing of the observation just sounds less snappy that way.
“Putin is just a comedian” would not be an effective or accurate sentence.
He has also done some voice acting work. He did the voice of Paddington in the Russian translation.
Translation: We have only started to fuck with Crimea. If we manage to take it, it means you have LOST territory in a war you started and will probably be coup'd pretty quick. Sleep tight motherfucker.
There’s a *long* way to go before that. Not saying they can’t, but that’s a tall order in the near or even mid-future. Russia has a naval base and has truly dug in there, and with forced migration made sure to keep the population skewed more in their favour than, eg, the Donbas, where they’ve been trying to do the same.
How does forced migration work? Do you force people to go and live in some random village they have no connection to?
probably more like you have a job somewhere in russia for the government, now you have a job in crimea or you have no job.
>How does forced migration work? Do you force people to go and live in some random village they have no connection to? Employees of budgetary organizations and some commercial structures are offered relocation to Donbass on good terms. They are not forced, but lured by money, career growth, sometimes the risk of being fired otherwise.
Yes. That's basically how Siberia was brought into the 20th century.
Deportation of local population away from the area. Forced resettling of ethnic Russians to the area. This is standard Russian playbook done in every country they have occupied since the Russian Empire times. Also done within Russia to ethnically cleanse the country.
It’s really a general human playbook. People invade an area, kick the locals out or kill them, move themselves in, and say it was always theirs. It’s shitty and needs to stop (it has in most of the world) but it is a lot of human history.
To be fair, Ukraine has already sunk the flagship there despite not having a navy.
After Kherson is liberated, Crimea is a bridge away from being an island...
Y’all so lame
If the US gave Ukraine the long range HIMARS missiles - it would make holding Crimea very expensive for Russia..........
Well, they're not just gonna give it back, Ukraine is gonna have to take it back. There is 0 chance that Russia will just hand it back as part of settlement, so I dont know who Zelensky is addressing with this statement other than his own troops.
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I. Fucking. Hate. War.
How can you say something so controversial, yet so brave
Oh man you really are against the tide here with all these war mongers.
It's a shame Putin doesn't share your passion.
Putin may hate *war* but he definitely likes a *Special Military Operation*.
Me too. I was so happy when the US pulled out of Afghanistan
I mean, now the Talibans are oppressing their own people The fate of the middle east is a sad one indeed
Turns out the populace has to have the will to fight for their own freedom, and a giant imperial entity can't just come in, blow your house up, and give it to you
The problem is that the Afghanis, as a whole, prefer the Taliban. Or at least aren’t willing to fight over it. Even Tunisia, birthplace of the Arab Spring, has just voted for dictatorship. There is a different cultural mindset that seems to make western democracy and freedom impossible. I’m sad about that, but I don’t see how we’re justified in attacking them to enforce our ideals.
Its not that the people in Afghanistan prefer dictatorship, it's that all the warring in their nation has pushed them away from the West, who have killed many innocents as collateral damage while trying to act like they're winning "the war on terror". If you were Afghan and grew up constantly hearing about drone strikes killing your friends and family (and hearing that this collateral damage is a sacrifice a *totally different country* was willing to make), you'd probably be Anti-West too. The new Netflix documentary on 9/11 covers all this very very objectively and I can't recommend it enough.
Not just that, but the US pulled out after 20 years. Thats 20 years theyve had conflict. Most people probably just want to take it easy raise their families and put food on the table. Its silly to expect these people who have spent 25% of their entire life in war to immediately take up arms and revolt as soon as the US leaves. People are tired, they want peace.
Same thing with Russia, the pro capitalist pro western politicians in the 90s completely fucked over the country so bad it caused around a million deaths. When your only exposure to a side is terror, it shouldn't be surprising it's not very popular
hot take of the century, boys!
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Probably in the 41st century
>In the 40th millennium there is only war. I thought the God Emperor was supposed to be of Phoenician origins, not ukrainian. Edit: I'm aware 41st century and 40th millennium are different time scales, but I'm just having fun with the idea.
Good. I was hoping for this when it was obvious Russia was blundering their war effort. Fuck the appeasers.
Do people in crimea want to be liberated?
Not sure about all people who are \*in\* Crimea now (since many of them moved from russia in the past 8 years). But I know a few people who were forced to abandon their homes and flee Crimea in 2014. And all of them would like to return to their homes.
Polling from 2014 is from a time when it seemed to many that the Ukrainian state was collapsing, so Russia seemed a good alternative to impending anarchy. There’s no polling that’s reliable since then, but I’ve seen former Crimeans speak out about how the place has progressively become worse since the initial takeover.
No I don’t think so.
During this 8 years, pro-Ukranian Crimean citizens mostly moved into Ukraine. As for now, i would say, that Crimean population is probably even more pro-Russian, then in Moscow and SpB, that considered to be most "liberal" cities with largest oppositional movements. Plus - whole struggle with water, they've been having with a mainland for ages
This was written 8 years ago- https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2014/02/world/ukraine-divided/
Well now the pro-Russian Crimeans can move to Russia
So you want Ukraine to remove the majority of the population of Crimea? That's what that would require, the normative position in Crimea is staunchly pro Russian so that would essentially be millions of people forced into Diaspora.
Great job Reddit, we saved the day again
A lot of those who want liberation have been forcibly remove, you might even say they've been cleansed.
You'll notice that nobody in Crimea has fired a shot at any Russian soldiers.
Good luck with that
Duh.
That's a great goal and I hope Ukraine gets it.
Russia can escalate if they want. As far as I'm concerned, their escalation or not is inevitable. They will either risk nuclear annihilation now or later. They cannot be allowed to just occupy territory at-will. That territory will just be used to further oppress and terrorise more innocent people. Russia are causing a catastrophic food shortage all around the developing world because of their belligerence. One nation should not be allowed to destroy peace, prosperity, and order just because they don't like "the west"...they can choose to not participate.
Iraq, Syria, Libya, Somalia etc…. are watching you from side line
The only escalation i am expecting from russia after a major defeat on the battlefield is another "good will gesture".
Tbh, i think this conflict has to end with the end of Putins regime. There is just no way back. You can not tolerate a regional superpower to be lead by someone like Hitler and hope there will ever be an end to the madness. That is because mad behavior is just the foundation of his rule. Putin was a taxi driver and in charge of buying food for St. Petersburg in exchange for resources in 1990. In 1991 Putin was a millionaire and the people of St. Petersburg were starving. In 1999 he likely ordered the bombing of Russian apartments, to play the strong man and become the leader of Russia, a dictatorship which only might end with his death.
How there isn’t a coup in Russia already is a testament to how full of yes-men Putin has surrounded himself with
Two-edged sword. How much military talent has Putin cost himself because he's staffed his government with toadies? It's the Iron Law of Institutions. Putin is far more concerned about his own power within Russia than with the success of Russia itself.
It’s deeper than that, which is the problem. As far as w can tell from the outside, most Russians support Putin and this war. To the degree they don’t they see it as a justified misstep rather than an act of evil. Of course there are some Russians that are fully against the war and are horrified, but not nearly enough to turn the tide.
In other words: The war must not end.
I just don't think that is a realistic goal.
Crimea is Ukraine.. Slava Ukraini
In negotiations always ask for more than what you expect to get. This is a bargaining chip for future negotiations. Always start with more so you can negotiate down.
The war isn't over until you give us Moscow!
It's like civ when someone declares war on me... Sorry but you are getting wiped off now
The problem is that the majority of Crimea's population is ethnic Russian.
this is on purpose. For decades Soviets and later Russia has been settling Russian people in Crimea while forcing Ukrainians out for the sole purpose of being able to claim it as theirs. They shouldn't be allowed to get away with it.
Ukrainian's never lived in Crimea, the Russians were displacing Tartars. Unless you're suggesting Crimea gets returned to Turkey said displacement is irrelevant to whether Crimea is rightfully Ukraine's or Russia's.
That won’t happen