Russia - threadbanned users in OP

03-03-2022 11:39AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118724983#Comment_118724983

Announcing them on Twitter makes me think it isn't real though.

Wibbs · 03-03-2022 11:40AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118724936#Comment_118724936

There are a large number of steps between Putin wanting to push the button and that button(s) being pushed. Both the US and the former USSR added more and more steps to that line during the Cold War, because of the concerns over rogue leaders, or rogue guys closer to the button. He'd have to convince not just his hardline close associates but people all the way down to those at the sharp end with the actual buttons under their fingers.

Plus during the Cold War on two occasions when the order looked like a go, it was Russians who said "hang on, nope". They've also direct experience of something like Chernobyl and the atomic genie that can't be put back in the bottle. That bankrupted the Soviet Union, was very close to getting much much worse and left a huge part of their world essentially uninhabitable for centuries. I was more concerned last week, but now unless something changes radically I can't see nukes coming into it.

StevenToast · 03-03-2022 11:42AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118724983#Comment_118724983

You sound exactly like an armchair general....is "theatre" the new "wet pub" bolloxology....the next we will hear are the next 2 weeks are crucial in this war.....

Bayonet · 03-03-2022 11:42AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118724923#Comment_118724923

The west has a terrible habit of assuming other countries and cultures want the same things we do. Like we've reached the pinnacle of society. That usually revolves around this vague notion of everyone wanting 'freedom', followed by a laundry list of material things such as the latest iphone.

There are people in the M.E for example who genuinely don't want western 'freedom'. We also look at women with face coverings and immediately assume they've been 'forced' to wear it. Sure, there are a few countries that mandate it - but plenty wear them out of choice.

We assume that the mother of a son killed in Gaza feels the same emotion as we do...because all mothers are the same. But you'll often see them interviewed in Arab media where she'll laud the death of her son and say she hopes her other sons follow in his footsteps.

Russians have always been in this limbo between east and west. It's hard to know what their identity is. They're not a liberal democracy and up until a few years ago, were not a complete dictatorship either. So what are they? truth is a large portion of them don't want what we have. Given how naval gazing western society has become with an obsession on race and gender, I don't blame countries for not wanting to import some of our bullshit.

zv2 · 03-03-2022 11:43AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118724943#Comment_118724943

Russia and NATO out of Ukraine is the most reasonable solution (I'm not a Putinbot or any kind of bot.)

Yurt2 · 03-03-2022 11:43AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118724855#Comment_118724855

There comes a point where trying to understand a despot is a waste of time. We've had 20 years of Putin, he's lived a fairly charmed life in his relations with the rest of Europe given some of the sh*t he's got up to and sponsored.

We know the colour of his money now without any doubt. He wants to undermine the institutions of the west, undermine the democratic architecture, and ultimately the security of the continent - and he wants real estate.

To what end? Who gives a f*ck the why and what's rattling around his miserable skull. If you can't make Russia "great" with all the resources the word has to offer and the largest landmass in the world, you're not going to do it by going full Mussolini in Abyssinia.

He resents the EU, he resents its economic power, influence in the world and its values - he thinks it all comes at the expense of Russia and its energy cripple economy and doesn't get why the days of kowtowing to Moscow are gone and not coming back.

This war is a Putin problem, not a problem of the West trying to understand the mysterious unknowable soul of the Russian nation.

Botrys · 03-03-2022 11:45AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118725023#Comment_118725023

NATO is no longer his problem

he'll have to trade the sanctions for NATO eventually.

he's in a corner.

josip · 03-03-2022 11:49AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118725023#Comment_118725023

No, at this stage the sanctions have to stay in place until Russia withdraw from all of Ukraine, including Donbass and Crimea. And UN peacekeepers from EU countries are allowed in Ukraine all the way to the Russian border. No matter how long it takes.

No chance of getting reparations from them to rebuild Ukraine, that will have to be funded by the west. So at least make sure that Ukraine gets its massive shale gas reserves in the Donbass back.

Oh, and give Konigsberg to the Polish while we're at it.

Bayonet · 03-03-2022 11:50AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118725031#Comment_118725031

If Putin is demolishing this social contract, that doesn't gel with his popularity still being twice that of Biden's. Some Russians prefer an attrition position with the west than an iphone.

03-03-2022 11:51AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118724919#Comment_118724919

It is a lovely sentiment. But we are hierarchical pack animals, we form tribes, and those tribes compete for power in a wider hierarchy. At the same time, the fact that we are hierarchical pack animals enables us to do amazing things, like collect samples from asteroids and convert sunlight into electrical energy.

Also there will always be bad actors that people need to be protected from. We will always need military people and force and equipment (in some form) to deal with the situations bad actors create. It's naive to think otherwise. We will always need police too.

I see peacekeepers as the ideal, to be honest, and maybe in some utopian future that is all the world will need in terms of military power. (Their job being to separate bad actors from each other and to provide humanitarian assistance.) We are very self-critical in Ireland, but we are also highly advanced in ways that we don't give ourselves enough credit for.

Christy42 · 03-03-2022 11:52AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118725023#Comment_118725023

While we are at it all Irish troops out of Ukraine. Right now Putin is the one in Ukraine so it seems a bit difficult to withdraw NATO troops. Indeed if NATO was there Putin would not be.

Curious will you have the same opinion of Finland and Sweden? Both of them have been ordered by Russia to not enter NATO. Which countries should Putin be in command of which alliances they can apply to join?

cnocbui · 03-03-2022 11:53AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118723876#Comment_118723876

Any country that gets a threat from Putin si getting it because he has plans to attack them and do a Ukraine. NATO is a a self defence alliance. All of them should immediately start sending troops and planes, otherwise they will be picked off one by one later.

You would think Europe would remember the consequences of trying appeasment of madmen bent on reconstituting imagined former glories.

gandalf · 03-03-2022 11:55AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118725023#Comment_118725023

TBH that may seem like a reasonable position to us but in reality what organisation a sovereign country joins is their own business and no-one else's. Russia should not have a veto over what organisation that Ukraine joins and they shouldn't have say over what one Russia is part of. Once they don't impede on each others sovereignty there is not a problem.

However if Ukraine survives this with an independent Government you can be guaranteed they will push to join NATO. Russia was supposed to respect their sovereignty after they gave up Nuclear Weapons instead they pilled over their border and then threatens the use of same weapons against any one who would aid them.

I think the aim for the world now is to get the dangerous regime out of power in Russia, denazify Russia and demilitarised them up to ensure they no longer have nukes.

shillyshilly · 03-03-2022 11:55AM

this is going towards a Russian nuke being launched.... Putin is getting backed into a nothing to lose corner...

Only way out I see is:

a) he gets his way

b) he has a heart attack by a 10th floor window / suicide by 3 shots to the back of the head etc...

where's @MFPM @BurgerFace @BluePlanet been?

weisses · 03-03-2022 11:56AM

Going over all the different videos posted on the various platforms in the last week ..... The Russians lost an awfull lot of hardware and the personell that comes with it

briany · 03-03-2022 11:57AM

It's great to see the support Ukraine is getting in terms both material and spiritual, but I am a bit worried that Putin's going to come out any day now and announce that, in his estimation, NATO are waging a proxy war against Russia and that war will become a direct war if NATO does not cease and desist. He has already threatened those who would seek to intervene, but did not name anyone specifically at that time.

Dohnjoe · 03-03-2022 11:57AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118724997#Comment_118724997

I presume it's a statement by the MOD which is being relayed by that twitter feed

As for releasing that kind of info to the public, boosting morale would play a large part

gandalf · 03-03-2022 11:58AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118725074#Comment_118725074

I put money on it being a "stroke" myself. Classic politburo way of dealing with the "dear leader".

Yurt2 · 03-03-2022 11:59AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118724919#Comment_118724919

Indeed. Swords into ploughshares is a wonderful sentiment until fascism is beating at your door and your country is being extinguished.

I'm fairly sure none of the Ukrainian men that travelled from Ireland back home thought or were minded to by personality be wielding AKs even a short few weeks ago. What choice do they have? Watch their country be steamrollered from afar?

03-03-2022 11:59AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118725086#Comment_118725086

I really hope it is more than just morale boosting though. They need to inflict a reversal on the Russians somewhere and fast.

realdanbreen · 03-03-2022 11:59AM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118724909#Comment_118724909

I already spoke with a guy there. Once the call is finished don't hang up and it will/ should tie up the line.

is_that_so · 03-03-2022 12:00PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118724997#Comment_118724997

All part of the media strategy, truth and disinformation in equal measures. I believe Russia have about 95% of their forces deployed so as good a time as any to be thinking about it.

03-03-2022 12:00PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118725083#Comment_118725083

I hope it he does that NATO ignores his threat. He would only make that threat if NATO's aid to Ukraine was truly wrecking his plans.

Dohnjoe · 03-03-2022 12:01PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118725018#Comment_118725018

Theatre of war, it means where the conflict is taking place. Counterattacks are critical, not just from a strategic perspective, but also for morale.

Dohnjoe · 03-03-2022 12:02PM

Some parts of Ukraine already looking like Grozny

Wibbs · 03-03-2022 12:03PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118725023#Comment_118725023

Yep. And face can be saved here. Agree to some NATO stuff way down the line, but not anytime soon. Which would suit NATO too. Same with the gesture - and nice that it is, that's all it was - of EU membership.

Let's peek behind the current and very understandable* we love Ukraine! Twitterisms for the moment. Ukraine is an economic basketcase and the second most corrupt nation in Europe with a grumbling civil war in her eastern provinces. A country with more baggage than Dublin airport on Christmas Eve. It isn't within an asses roar of the requirements for entry into the EU. Now there was a very welcome policy shift on a groundswell of Ukrainian support that kicked out the last Putin lite oligarch, but it has years to go. As I said earlier in the thread, horrific though this invasion continues to be, IMHO when the dust has settled and the tragic dead are buried IMHO it will turn out to be one of the 'best' things to happen to Ukraine and for Ukrainians. Money will flood in to rebuild and the beady eye will be on them for any corruption shenanigans.

I do think the country's borders need redrawing. The nation itself is barely a century old as it is and was drawn up as a loose province of the Soviet Union. The border was somewhat of an afterthought and some parts are a lot less Ukrainian than others. Partition is always a crap solution, but in this case it may well be the only one. Let the East go to Russia. Crimea too actually, more for realistic reasons as Russia is dug in there. The rest a free Ukraine looking westward.

*that I even need to qualify that...

Yurt2 · 03-03-2022 12:03PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118725105#Comment_118725105

They could probably commit a bit more in terms of boots, but not much more. Russia has an incredible amount of real estate to defend and a lot of bordering countries have scores to settle with ol' Puts, and scores that were generated in Moscow. Georgia immediately comes to mind, and there are a few other likely lads you can throw into the mix as well.

Drumpot · 03-03-2022 12:04PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118724923#Comment_118724923

As Wibbs said, if you look at the thread , when people try to expand out from “Putin is bad, we have to save Ukraine” (which is fine to be the general narrative), people are accused of trying to deflect or somehow imply it’s ok what Putin is doing.

I personally came in here as green as most, frothing at the mouth about Putin. But I’ve not just watched the media , I’ve watched links posted here and from friends that show people who know far much more then me, about why we are where we are. Most didn’t engage on it.

I think some posters were saying NATO and the west played a role in getting here and they were attacked. some also suggested there is propaganda on both sides , which there is, but it was taken that they were saying the pictures from Ukraine are not real )which wasn’t what they were saying).

People are reacting very aggressive if anybody says something that they think hints at “Putin isn’t entirely to blame” even if that’s not actually what’s being said.

I was chatting with my wife about it yesterday, asking why people might be so defensive. I explained what I thought and she made a good point. Firstly , not all people on these threads are balanced , objective individuals. And secondly a small piece of text. Can easily be misinterpreted and considered hostile. This is why I’ve generally always tried to write longish posts to give nuance to my stance on a topic.

But on these forums people have second attention spans , they see something , even one sentence in a long post and they attack that. I do it myself to be fair, but I am aware of that defect.

Id actually write more but I’m out and about and have probably bored some to sleep at this stage.

TLDR: basically what Wibbs said.

Cluedo Monopoly · 03-03-2022 12:04PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118723964#Comment_118723964

If I were a betting man, this is how I think it will play out.

Russian army will complete their strategic objectives within a week or so - Kyiv, Odessa will be taken and Russia will control the Eastern half of Ukraine more or less.

Russia will announce a ceasefire and state that they have no intention of invading the western half of Ukraine. Guerrilla warfare will continue in the occupied areas. Morale amongst populace will continue to decline as water/food/power impacts are felt. Especially in the large urban areas.

Russia will oust the current government and announce upcoming 'democratic elections'. In the meantime they will install an interim government with some Russian stooge as president. I am hoping Zelensky gets out and becomes a president in exile. Otherwise he will be killed or imprisoned.

Russia will immediately organise referendums/plebiscites in the disputed territories and possibly other Russian dominated regions in the east of Ukraine. These votes will of course be rigged to show 95%+ willingness to become part of Russian federation.

The Russians will restore power, water, comms and bring in food supplies in order to persuade urban citizens that the worst is over.

Russia will agree with the west and Ukraine that they can never join NATO before they agree to withdraw military. They will also insist on rules around gas pipelines, tariffs to guarantee supplies going east-west.

Democratic elections will take place but it will also be rigged in favour of pro Russian members of parliament. Possibly a new constitution to guarantee things like NATO membership, future nuclear weapons and cultural Russian protections (e.g. language).

The North Crimean canal will be re-opened to water from the Dnieper with a guarantee that the flow will be maintained or another invasion will occur.

I have no idea how they will deal with Transnistria.

I could see the Russian military withdrawing with a matter of months but Ukranian cities will be a hellish and oppressive place to live in until that happens. Many will die in the meantime and the big question is how Ukrainians will be able to undo the damage done by Putin.

Putin's propaganda machine will be in overdrive at home to make above look like peacekeeping/liberation/victory etc etc. That said, I think his days are numbered now. He completely misread the response.

Thoughts?

is_that_so · 03-03-2022 12:05PM

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118725070#Comment_118725070

Putin has threatened both Sweden and Finland, who'd be more than able to resist an initial attack. As I've mentioned Article 42 of Lisbon is about mutual aid and if one of those offering aid happened to be a NATO member he'd have a huge problem.

Russia - threadbanned users in OP

Comments