Russia for a country of it's size has the economy on par of that of south Korea and you are trying to say the levels of poverty are that of Ireland ? Lo
They can't afford to start a war let alone win one.
Looks like turkey are now entering the fray, it's increasingly looking like the comrades will have to back down and return to Moscow with there tail between there legs.
Putin has disastrously lead them! They look like fools now with hollow threats and no way to win. If anything this will drive Ukraine further towards the west and NATO.
putin a well advertised 100k+ army on the border will never work again
Oh that's very good. @agoodpunt , you need a bigger stage. Boards.ie is too small a platform for this type of output.
putin a well advertised 100k+ army on the border will never work again, so he has no alternative he is going to make it count, same as you threaten someone and back down but if you throw the first punch you got to finish.
EU needs to become less energy dependent and develop its own, russian dosent care about global warming and will mine/explore the arctic and pipe it to the world
Narrative is one of the buzzwords from the Putinistas in this thread. As if truth is like children's plasticine that can be reshaped according to whatever purpose suits you best at the time. You could see Russian tanks rolling down Khreshchatyk in Kyiv and you'd still be looking for a narrative to spin such is the manner your brain has been hijacked.
This set of circumstances is one where Occams Razor most definitely applies. Putin has assembled the makings of a war on the frontiers of Ukraine for one of two purposes A: To actually invade and refabricate Ukraine politically to a pro-Russian orientation, with perhaps some more annexations, or B: To use the threat of war and dangerous brinksmanship to extract concessions and stand-downs from Western institutions and countries - and to redraw the security map of Europe in his favour.
The above is not narrative. It's blindingly obvious to all but the political malcontents that's what's going on. Putin is not an unknown quantity, he's been with us for almost a quarter of a century now. His playbook and psychology are not a particular mystery. Whether it's option A or B he intends to take will be revealed over the next few weeks.
Narrative is a cheap word that unskilled propagandists like to employ when they want to drag the truth and what is obvious into the dirt and wrestle with it for kicks and for the sake of giving breathing space to lies.
Russia is not bad, but it is led by bad men. People who over the course of decades have spunked the country's economic potential, degraded its institutions, bullied and invaded its neighbours, and systematically suffocated political opposition and media figures (including murder by state authorities).
That you are so blind to the above and want to ignore it in favour of dancing some juvenile anti-American jig (as if it means anything to political conditions in Russia) is really really silly. As I said earlier in the thread, some tin-pot dictator anywhere in the world could start doing an anti-American Pied Piper routine, and you'd come dancing around the corpses at his feet with a grin on your face.
I'd settle for a plausible narrative that fits the facts. Something a bit more than Russia bad.
Putin has been ruling Russia - directly or indirectly - for over 20 years now. There is plenty of evidence to try understand his motivations and appetite for risk, even if those are not shared. His interventions in Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014 are perfectly rational if you accept that Russia considers those nations joining NATO to be a threat to its security. Their action was not irrational or mysterious. Russia, rightly or wrongly, has been quite consistent on communicating its red lines. War's are caused by failures to take the other side seriously too.
A Russian adventure in Ukraine 2022 makes no sense. It gains Russia nothing it doesn't already have and risks much - further sanctions, loss of allies nervous of Russian adventurism, NATO intervention, potential defeat leading to political unrest or maybe worse a quick victory followed by a grinding insurgency. If no possible motivation for an invasion now can be discerned, then its reasonable to start from there not being a motivation.
For my own part, the formal annexation of the separatist regions doesn't make sense for Russia. They want to influence Ukrainian politics - those republics, in Ukraine, voting in Ukrainian elections, with extensive autonomy and Russian identity, holding a constitutional veto on Ukrainian foreign policy to prevent western Ukraine aligning with the EU or NATO is the dream scenario for Russia. Annexing them would prevent that - they gain a few provinces, but lose Ukraine.
And not once has anyone even tried to explain why Russia would invade now
Just because we cannot perceive a rational reason does not mean that Putin cannot perceive one. One of the common historical reasons for wars starting is that one side is projecting their thought processes on the other.
We have no idea what Putin is thinking. We do know, however, what Russia is doing and is capable of, and have to honor that evidence. Russia is spending no small amount of rubles and long-term military capability (All those units moved to the Ukraine area are no longer conducting regular training or maintenance, for example) for some reason which to Russia will provide gains which outweigh those costs. So, the real question is "what does Putin expect to gain by either invasion or the threat of invasion?" Personally, I'll go with a formal annexation of the separatist regions of Ukraine, but that's just me projecting.
@zv2 the cold war which was engineered to scare everyone, including the Russians.
A newly hatched conspiracy theory? Haven't heard this one before anyway.
The real players here are not nations, the real players are the intelligence services. They, like the banks, are above nations and above loyalty to any politician.
Oh brother we don't want to go there (the "banks" dogwhistle) now as well do we?...Just when you think thread can't possibly get worse, another depth is plumbed!
In case you missed it,Russia have been coming since 2008 invasion of Georgia,and last was Crimea in 2014.
Russias Hybrid warfare is why they dont need to mass a large amount of troops
What more proof do you need?
Do you need Putin to knock on your front door?
Like I said, low level grotty work like giving Baader Meinhof Gruppen hippies in West Germany weapons was dogsbody work.
He was nowhere near the top of the KGB when in active service.
No account really? What about the account of Catherine Belton, who wrote Putin's People which won book of the year 2020 in: The Economist, the Financial Times, the New Statesman and The Telegraph?
According to journalist Catherine Belton, this downplaying was actually cover for Putin's involvement in KGB coordination and support for the terrorist Red Army Faction, whose members were frequently hiding in East Germany with support of the Stasi, and Dresden was preferred as a "marginal" town with low presence of Western intelligence services. According to an anonymous source, a former RAF member, at one of these meetings in Dresden the militants presented Putin with a list of weapons that were later delivered to the RAF in West Germany. Klaus Zuchold, who claimed to be recruited by Putin, said the latter also handled a neo-nazi Rainer Sonntag, and attempted to recruit an author of a study on poisons.[44] Putin also reportedly met Germans to be recruited for wireless communications affairs together with an interpreter. He was involved in wireless communications technologies in South-East Asia due to trips of German engineers, recruited by him, there and to the West.[38]
Low knowledge b*llsh*t
No account of Putin put him anywhere near the top of the KGB when he was in service.
He was a shoeshine boy in the backwater of Dresden towards the end of the cold war and ended up a cab driver in Petersburg when he was made redundant.
The real story of Putin's KGB career is that he was from the Leningrad end of operations, Moscow origin KGB officers got all the opportunity, promotion prospects and actual proper assignments. Leningrad cohort KGB officers were regarded as provincial, uncultured to essential intelligence work, and sent on dogsbody assignments to places like Dresden keeping watch on tractor factory communist party branches in the DDR.
In fact, Putin apparently developed a rather large chip on his shoulder from his KGB career.
You're buying into the 4D Chess mystique again.
He did head the FSB briefly a year, but that was political appointment by Yeltsin who could barely walk straight.
His intelligence career was low level when he was active.
Those are SAM interceptor missiles, and are not a nuclear delivery system unlike the Iskander system.
You used the language of "warhead" deliberately evoking nuclear delivery systems.
The only country that advanced it's nuclear warhead capable systems in Europe was Russia in Kaliningrad. Putin is in a sook because the defensive anti ballistic missile system installed weakened their nuclear delivery system and the radar is more powerful than he would like.
So he broke treaty by installing a medium rang nuclear delivery system right next to Poland.
You don't know your facts, are operating off Google and are decidedly low-knowledge.
"The real players here are not nations, the real players are the intelligence services. They, like the banks, are above nations and above loyalty to any politician. For them nations are just like pieces on the chess board. They are there to bring about their agenda. And we don't normally know what the agenda is until it is established.
What Putin is and what his dreams are is irrelevant. To say his opinions matter is to imagine he has power. He, like most of them, is just a pawn."
You cannot SERIOUSLY be suggesting that Putin, the former elite-level KGB agent, doesn't know what's going on with his own intelligence services and is being strung along by them?!
Putin literally IS the intelligence services. Putin is as immersed as anyone could possibly be in the intelligence services - he got to such a high rank in the KGB he had to move to the presidency to have more power.
About Biden or Trump or a lot of leaders it's a very plausible theory, you probably got the idea from people saying it about them. To suggest it about Putin is absolutely laughable and betrays a woeful understanding of world politics. To "imagine he has power" about Putin - Literally NOONE has ever said that about Putin before that I know: pro-Putin, anti-Putin, it's a ludicrous suggestion. Please leave, adults are talking here.
With the Legitimate part been in inverted commas. Can't really disagree with your description there of what the current Russian government is and the extreme authoritarianism that it embodies as a result of that corruption.
The plot thickens: "The Kremlin has often announced plans to station Iskander missiles in Kaliningrad to counter the US missile shield being developed in Eastern Europe. Washington claims that the shield is to counter possible missile attacks by Iran. However, Russian officials say it is directed against their country." Russia deploys nuclear-capable missile system in Kaliningrad: reports | News | DW | 07.02.2018
Possible counter attacks from Iran? lol
But all this talk about America vs. Russia is just a carry over from the cold war which was engineered to scare everyone, including the Russians. The real players here are not nations, the real players are the intelligence services. They, like the banks, are above nations and above loyalty to any politician. For them nations are just like pieces on the chess board. They are there to bring about their agenda. And we don't normally know what the agenda is until it is established.
What Putin is and what his dreams are is irrelevant. To say his opinions matter is to imagine he has power. He, like most of them, is just a pawn.
Falling population, says a lot about a Country, any Country, which for every 1'000 Birth's, has 495 Abortions. Quote NDTV:-The demographic crisis is definitely a failure of the state's policies," said Sergei Zakharov, a demography expert at the Higher School of Economics based in Moscow.He told AFP that measures to increase the birth rate encourage families to have children earlier but do not change how many children they want in total.He said the government's influence on birth rates is "limited" and shifting births to an earlier period will result in a "demographic gap" in the future.For Stepan Goncharov of the independent Levada Centre pollster, the low birth rate is connected to widespread "uncertainty about the future".Living standards in Russia have continuously deteriorated since 2014, with the economy strained by repeated Western sanctions, dependence on the oil and gas sector and widespread corruption. UNquote.
The Russians not invading is the status quo. People have been crying "The Russian are coming! The Russians are coming!" for months now. And not once has anyone even tried to explain why Russia would invade now. What can they hope to gain that they do not already have from 2014? Crimea and its naval base? They have it already. A frozen conflict to exercise a veto on Ukrainian membership of NATO? They have it already. The status quo is not ideal for Russia, but its certainly better than invading Ukraine.
The reality is if the Russians were hoping to intimidate Ukraine/NATO they would not be saying "We are not going to invade Ukraine". They would be staying completely silent about their intentions and let others worry about it. By saying they are not going to invade they surrender a useful tool to extract concessions. What concessions are even possible? To extract concessions by intimidation, there has to be the possibility they will be conceded. Nobody (including the Russians) can reasonably expect NATO, the US or the EU to concede anything to Russia.
Does Russia even have the capability to invade and hold Ukraine with just 100,000 troops? For the liberation of Kuwait, the US and its allies amassed a million troops. Ukraine is 30+ times the territory, and 10 times the population - to be held by just 100,000 troops? When you allow for supporting forces, the actual number of combat troops able to take and hold territory is going to be a small fraction of that 100,000. The Russians have repeatedly brought together between 90,000 and 130,000 troops to carry out military exercises in 2019 and 2020. 100,000 is too small for an invasion, but it is about the right size for a military exercise.
So the whole "Russia is going to invade soon" narrative doesn't really get off the ground when any one with some common sense looks at it. For a crime to happen, there needs to be motive and opportunity. There is no reasonable motive that has been offered, and the opportunity is highly dubious.
Assuming 100,000 troops (or at least their equipment) has been redeployed (I mean, the US would never lie -right?) to Russia's western border regions there is two probable causes: 1) its for a military exercise of the type the Russians have carried out before. 2) It is the new normal, giving Russia increased options to intervene should Ukraine attempt to militarily defeat the Russian separatist enclaves.
The US looking foolish is that they are increasingly isolated with their rhetoric about an imminent Russian invasion. Europe isn't falling into line. China has told the US to quit it, and is now openly backing Russia. The UN security council meeting was a waste of time. Their press briefings are reduced to making wild claims about crisis actors, with no evidence whatsoever. And even Ukraine is asking the US to calm down. And nobody in the US is going to fight to protect Ukraine's borders when US borders are an open joke. The Russian invasion narrative is over - don't worry, the US will try again in a few months.
It seems ordinary Russians don't seem to support any kind of attack on ukraine,alot of Russian will have Ukrainian relatives,
Others see Ukraine as being zero threat to Russia, can't see how Putin will spin this , there is no genocide been committed against the Russians in Ukraine ,the shelling in eastern Ukraine is coming from the Russians side and if ukraine shoots back they are accused of war crimes by the Kremlin.
He's just waiting on a mate.
So why is he doing it? You thrown out all the same old lies coming from the Kremlim for years, so please tell us in you enlightened opinion.
Which one of my 4 points is untrue?
Thereafter what is the logic of those 4 true statements.
Which is it Comrade?
Falling population is happening all over the globe.
Russia doesn't have extreme poverty by World Bank metrics.
It's poverty Rate isn't any worse than Ireland's.
"Police State controls on media", was there some point in that part of the world when media wasn't under scrutiny
State-sanctioned murder isn't unique to Russia, insofar as the rest, there's nothing in all of your assertions that merits some extreme action like going to war.
I thought Putin was some sort of autocratic dictator like leader that wasn't democratically accountable, so why would HE be worried about appearances?
The other explanation is that he a complete F***ing moran and I actually dont buy that.
Falling population, extreme poverty, requirement of Police state controls on media, Russian NGOs, state-sanctioned murder of position on foriegn soil and domestically, no domestic innovation in industry and complete reliance on export of mineral resources to pay for a failed society.
Tell us of the "very real" internal problems you allege that would result in Putin taking such extreme maneuvers of 4D chess.
I am genuinely curious about where Putin is going with this and have as a result come up with a perhaps far fetched theory, based on the following facts.
So given the above what is Putins goal?
Is his goal domestic? Is he actually trying to strengthen the ties within NATO and possibly motivate countries like Sweden, Finland (and perhaps Ireland) to join so he might better present NATO as the external beast to a Russian population that needs continued distraction from Putins very real internal failures.
Can only imagine what's it's going to be alike around here if the Russian embassy is allowed its massive basement extension!!!
It is, if you have it chalked down as the US being the aggressors, absolutely devastating...
Fortunately, that's only in oppositeland, where the Kremlin is the fountain of truth.
Hardly a humiliation for the US if the Russians don't invade, that's their end state. The Russians banked on extracting concessions for the threats, which has been a complete failure. Where do they go from here? Invade and face disaster, or humiliating back down. The US doesn't have to do anything but wait.
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