Appeasement has a very poor track record. Putin's bluffs must be called.
Not in this context. There's a reason some of Trump's highest popularity ratings in the world were in Eastern Europe. Under his watch the US's military emphasis changed from the more traditional Germany and UK to Poland and the Baltics.
That did not make the Russians happy. It is the continuation of a trend which started under Obama after the Crimea take-over. Trump's comments about his unhappiness with NATO politics made most of the press, but it in no way negatively affected the military positioning on the ground which leaned more and more Eastwards over time.
Thanks. So nothing new, really. That's American plan since news of Russian troops came in.
The way I see it, there are two options:
1) West accepts some of the Russian demands (the ones that are really important to Russia, like "no Ukraine in NATO" and "No NATO missiles close to Russian border", and we all continue to fight Covid.
2) Russians establish defense line along Dnieper river and all of us in European continent try deal with our own economic problems...and fight Covid, of course.
Trump was aligned to the Russians (for whatever reasons), Biden is keen to show he has the brawn as much as the brains to do so/.
Biden has said (as I saw on CNN) that he is ready to act..Obama rolled back on sanctions (if I remember)
They called for sanctions today though I think they mean economic sanctions.
Absolutely nothing to do with democrats or republicans
@Liberty_Bear
"Only today the heads of state for Poland and Lithuania met to ascertain what they would do starting with a very strong statement they would not tolerate it."
Did they say what will they actually do ? And does "only today" means that they actually haven't discussed the topic earlier ? The news about Russian troops are not really fresh, and considering all the talk from Biden etc. I assumed all of them already had discussions and made some plans: SWIFT and the rest for beginning. Does it actually mean they thought that a threat of economic sanctions would be enough to make Russia back off ?
Nail on head there.
The eastern part of the Ukraine they occupied had a huge swathe of Russians moved during the times of the USSR. Russia is playing a clever game by pushing NATO and NATO is responding. Only today the heads of state for Poland and Lithuania met to ascertain what they would do starting with a very strong statement they would not tolerate it. Russia does not want foreign bases from NATO countries in their adjacent neighbours and its easy to see why. Democrats see this as a way of boosting popularity on the home front with a declaration that they will stand up to the big bad bear. With Russia holding the strings on the gas supply , most wont tackle them.
It looks like Russians don't appreciate conveniences of SWIFT that much, after all. Or they didn't understand some part in "The Worst Economic Sanctions The World Has Ever Seen".
So... is there a "plan B" or is it going to be: "Sorry Ukraine, we tried" ?
...or is there something we, simple folks, don't know ?
This is definitely hotting up now. Putin threatening military action.
This is the latest coming from Kremlin TV , American mercenaries are planning to launch chemical weapons attacks ,and are training Ukrainians how to attack russian military positions, Putin himself referenced US military personnel in eastern Ukraine today,along with the notion of US missiles being only minutes away from Moscow and how Russia has nowhere to retreat
More likely to bomb you back the the stone age , while crying for freedom , meanwhile in Russia they cry oppression
You are describing the behavior of the US.
What's the earliest that spring could come to the Russian /Ukrainian border ?
I'm assuming it's march /April -
And assuming that de-mobilizing those troops will take at least a month or so then what ever is going to happen needs to happen by February or all that equipment will be stuck in the mud ...
Got to love the sense to humour
He doesn't have to attack directly , welcome to hybrid or asymmetric warfare ,he can interfere inside the individual states and support groups from the far right to separatist ,not necessarily to take down their governments but to destabilise and cause division in their populations
I'm not getting drawn into an argument about terms. I've used the term EU/NATO to reference the economic & military blocs as well as their members. You can call them the good guys if you prefer.
If you use terms that have a clear definition (like the EU & NATO) in your own way such that they mean something entirely different, then you will make communication impossible.
I'm not getting drawn into the rights and wrongs of any military interventions, regime changes, partitions, or assassinations. It is sufficient for my argument that you acknowledge they are practised by EU/NATO members.
No, it's not sufficient just because you state that it is. Most of those listed "Western" (apart from US involvement in them, I think that's about the only vague common denominatior) military interventions were not an equivalent of Russia invading Ukraine to turn it into a new satellite state. Only the US/UK (note: not NATO, not EU) Iraq invasion would be a near equivalent, and even for that there would be several differences.
Any grown up assessment of the world has to accept Russia will practise them too.
Alright then, that's fine so.
By they way, if Russia wish to do that with Ukraine entire, from what I read given hostility of both the govt. (which will put up a fight) and population to this, it may involve a brutal war with casualties and refugee flows the likes of which we've not seen in Europe for a long time. You'll be happy to know I'm not a "militarist" and I don't think there's actually anything the West can or should do here other than punish Russia with economic, political and social isolation after the fact and strongly support a (non Russian puppet) Ukrainian govt. if one survives on territory they retain.
If it does happen, will be interesting to come back here and see what you think of events from comfort of your little cosy nest in "neutral" Ireland. Safely ringed by the weaponry and armies of a bunch of those Western military powers you so sneeringly term the "good guys". It's all a little bit sick making when you think about it really.
I'm not getting drawn into the revisionism regarding the crazed reaction to Trumps election.
What? I'm not revising anything.
At this point and time, I've yet to see any real evidence that Russia is massing troops for an invasion of Ukraine....any objective assessment understands that it gains them nothing and it would be even dumber without the advantage of surprise.
There are clearly factions in the US that thirst for a military conflict with Russia. But that's no reason to listen to them. These are the same people who brought us stories like the Iraqi WMD programme. Now it's annual Russian invasions.
Well they do seem to be building up military forces at/near the border(s) for some reason. You can't invade a country the size of Ukraine by surprise but I am also unsure what it would gain Russia and it seems like a disaster in the making for everyone. I don't recall any past claims made that Russia may invade Ukraine soon were as loud as to have US president flustered + holding emergency meetings with Putin etc. This situation is not the same as pre-Iraq war. It should be easier (for media) to verify a claim of movement of forces than answer the difficult question of what weapons a country has available to it, or what it is building in secret in hidden facilities. Like yourself, am around long enough to remember there was so much extremely public dissent and doubt (incl. from UN weapons inspectors if I recall) around the assertions about WMD and imminent threats etc. coming from those in US/UK governments who were pushing hard to justify war.
Poland IS Nato for chrissakes. Russia isn't going to attack NATO.
In fact all the Baltic states are, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania.
I'd last about 20 minutes so! I hope it doesn't escalate to full-scale war between Russia and Ukraine.
Pretty standard temporary military infrastructure from what I've seen , russians troops seem happy enough living in trenches for months at a time in Ukraine
How well built are these Russian military camps near the border? It must be miserable being in temporary accommodation for months in winter around there.
It would seem very shortsighted after the withdrawal from Afghanistan to allow themselves to be seen as a walkover again. They'd leave all their allies panicking.
None of what you mention indicates that Lukashenko would be willing to hand over Belarus to Russia. You've just described a mutually beneficial alliance.
The RAF patrol Irish skies, it's hardly an invitation to invade.
Poland is currently facing a huge amount of Russian propaganda for some reason or another ,in the last few years in Moldova russian media ran stories that Moldova banks had run out of money and the economy was about to collapse , Moldovans made their way to Russian military bases and surrounded them to prevent russian forces coming on to the Streets ,look at Serbia where another putin puppet wants to break away from the dayton accord and divide the relatively calm region , under the guise putin will protect his Citizens
This isn't just about Ukraine it's multiple states facing russian aggression
If NATO does not support Ukraine's independence to chart it's own course it's appeasement, plain and simple. It would be a really troubling message to the Baltics, Poland, all former soviet republics.
Who would be next?
Reports of an extra 25k troops brought into their forward areas in the last week according to Reuters news agency. I'm beginning to think this is not a bluff and Putin may have made his mind up to go in now with obvious American weakness evident.
This is just another chess game for Putin - ratchet up the pressure - at the same time europes gas is under threat - and Moscow has spent years gearing it's economy towards this , if ukraine does something stupid then the Russian military will enter and absorb Donbass - if there's a situation they can use they'll keep going .. and you can guarantee there'll be as much behind the lines, little green men , stuff as possible -
The Annual russian invasion , that's a new one one , along with there is no evidence of a russian build up,
Lol.
There is more than enough evidence and a lot of it is open source , satellite imagery , social media videos of military units arriving at train stations close to the Ukrainian border , the 10 + new russsian military bases opened along with border with Ukraine ,this isn't a training exercise this is a build up for a major operation against Ukraine ,if russia is worried about the so called russian passport holders why doesn't he evacuate them and even at that it's safe to say the number is hugely inflated to suit Putins aggression , just like the genocide of Russians in Ukraine never happened despite putin himself publicly stating that genocide was being used against the so called russian population of Ukraine ,they also previously stated they had discovered hundreds of mass graves containing russian speakers in Ukraine ,
What evidence have Russia produced to back up the claims , nothing,
Absolutely nothing they have no evidence of anything happening to Russians in Ukraine
I'm not getting drawn into the rights and wrongs of any military interventions, regime changes, partitions, or assassinations. It is sufficient for my argument that you acknowledge they are practised by EU/NATO members. Any grown up assessment of the world has to accept Russia will practise them too.
At this point and time, I've yet to see any real evidence that Russia is massing troops for an invasion of Ukraine. Is there Russian troops in Russia? Sure. Do they do large scale military exercises on a regular basis? Sure. The Russians have denied they have any plan to invade, though they have also been clear that any Ukrainian offensive against Russian passport holders (apparently 500K in the region) would lead to a response. You don't have to trust them - any objective assessment understands that it gains them nothing and it would be even dumber without the advantage of surprise. And we have experience - the same wailing and keening about a huge Russian invasion was happening back in April 2021. No Russian invasion then. There will be another session of keening and wailing sometime in 2022. And 2023. And 2024. And 2025 and so on.
Poor old Russia, sadly it is always under "threat". However it does a fair bit of threatening and scary stuff itself (and that's aside from army exercises and military build ups, probes by aircraft and ships etc near neighbours' borders). It has been engaged in constant low level (& not so low level) grey zone tactics against the US, UK and several EU members for the last decade or so. Despite neutrality and really having not much to do with any of this, even Ireland's arguably experienced a bit of collateral damage or accidental overspill from those Russian actions quite recently.
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