The Russians have gone in

[LVSteve]

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Situation is very confused. First it's confined to Donbas. Then it's about the "demilitarisation and denazification" of Ukraine. Either way, the fat is really in the fire now.

Ukraine-Russia crisis: Putin announces military operation - BBC News

Ukraine conflict: Russia announces special military operation in Donbas - BBC News

 

[tominboise]

This is like Sept 1, 1939 all over again. Question is, what will the world do this time? What can be done?

 

[biku324]

Ukraine has lost 14,000 KIA fighting Russian-backed insurgents since 2014 - that's 2x our casualties in the Revolutionary War.

In 2002 I was running a police executive management course for foriegn police at a US location. We had police ranking officials from countries with contiguous land borders or sea borders/trade routes. One session we had Byelorussians, Russians, and Ukrainians - while all read/wrote/spoke Russian, the Ukrainian govt insisted on Ukrainian language printed material and simultaneous interpretation. That was because the official position was (and is) that the Russian period in Ukraine was a forced occupation during which millions of Ukranians were killed or starved to death. I had no idea of the antipathy between Ukrainians and Russians until that point.

Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia all consider the Russians, who occupied their countries until the Soviet Union collapsed, the same as the Nazis, who also occupied their countries.

 

[pantannojack]

So many stories about "Russia" the last five years, so little time.

 

[9mmPatriot]

WW III?
Let's hope not.

 

[biku324]

One thing about this - our intelligence services had it 100% right, all the way down to a 12-hour window before the attacks.

 

[Drm50]

Stalin was hard on Ukrainians. Trouble is there is a large population of Russians in Ukraine. In past Czechs were in similar situation at start of Hitlers power. They had significant Germanic population who were getting
short stroked. This gave Nazis excuse to “ liberate”. Similar politics were the cause of the troubles in Balkans , Bosnian war.
I doubt we do anything, Europe will do nothing with US “behind” them. If
Putin doesn’t pull genocide the west is going to act like it’s not happening.
After all every thing here is peachy, no reason to rock the boat.

 

[biku324]

Right now Ukraine is 77% Ukrainian, 17% Russian, and 6% other.

Ethnic Groups

Ukrainian 77.8%, Russian 17.3%, Belarusian 0.6%, Moldovan 0.5%, Crimean Tatar 0.5%, Bulgarian 0.4%, Hungarian 0.3%, Romanian 0.3%, Polish 0.3%, Jewish 0.2%, other 1.8%

Ukraine - The World Factbook

 

[UncleEd]

One goal in this Russian
campaign might also be
to solidify a Belarus corridor
to Kaliningrad, which sits
between Poland and
Lithuania, both NATO
countries.

Kaliningrad is home port
for Russia's Baltic Sea
fleet. Putin would love to
split off the NATO Baltic
countries from Poland.

Its not been uncommon
for U.S./NATO air forces
and Russian air forces
to come dangerously
close to each other in
maneuvers and even open
games of "chicken."

In northern Poland it's
not been uncommon for
"tourists" to view the
Russian bear right on the
Polish border.

 

[DWalt]

Seems that Kyiv (I always thought it was spelled Kiev) is under missile attack, probably by cruise missiles. Also Odessa. The real fear is that the invasion may well spread to the Baltic states and Poland. Long, long lines of refugees trying to get to Poland on the highways. They have no place else to go.

Gasoline prices will skyrocket and I bet the Dow will be down 5,000 tomorrow morning.

 

[Rudi]

Putin knows this "minor incursion" will not be challenged on the ground by any other nations. I think the Ukrainians may give him a bloody nose. But he'll get what he wants. I don't think he's dumb enough to hit any NATO country in the area. Would be bad for his income.

 

[LVSteve]

One goal in this Russian
campaign might also be
to solidify a Belarus corridor
to Kaliningrad, which sits
between Poland and
Lithuania, both NATO
countries.

Kaliningrad is home port
for Russia's Baltic Sea
fleet. Putin would love to
split off the NATO Baltic
countries from Poland.

If the next stops on the Putin European tour are Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, then you don't worry so much about the location of Kaliningrad.
.
.
.
A few weeks later....

Putin thinking: 'Hmm, that Kazakhstan place has our space launch facility, so maybe we need to "secure" that next. You know, I think Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan need some "help" with government like Ukraine did. I'd better make all these places "secure" and call the whole empire... sorry, group, something sexy like The Union of...wait, what? That's been done before? Gavno!'

 

[biku324]

The Baltic states are all part of NATO.

 

[Beemerguy53]

Putin knows this "minor incursion" will not be challenged on the ground by any other nations. I think the Ukrainians may give him a bloody nose. But he'll get what he wants. I don't think he's dumb enough to hit any NATO country in the area. Would be bad for his income.

This is an extremely dangerous situation, for Europe and for the world.

Putin is like the bully in a neighborhood, who does what he wants to, and doesn't care if he upsets or offends or even hurts others. Laws, rules of conduct, treaties...none of those apply to him. His attitude is "well, what're you gonna do about it?" And really...how do you counter that? If you do nothing, you're validating the bullying. But standing up to a bully requires backbone, and grit, and a willingness to take a punch or two, in the interests of justice, and peace and stability in the long run.

In the aftermath of World War II, the victorious Allies arrested the leaders of the Third Reich, and tried them for war crimes in Nuremberg. Among the charges against them were that they planned and carried out a war of aggression...and when convicted, they were hanged for their crimes. Well, Putin's invasion of Ukraine is almost exactly analogous to Hitler's invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939...a clear and obvious war crime, a blatant violation of the international rule of law.

The question the United Nations has to decide now is what are we going to do about it, especially if the planned economic sanctions don't persuade Putin to withdraw from Ukraine. Do we let Russia annex Ukraine because that would be better than waging war? Or do the UN nations band together and attack him, drive him out of Ukraine? (Remember: That was the approach the UN took when Saddam Hussein invaded and occupied Kuwait.)

Many questions here...but no good answers...

 

[Mark8]

If the next stops on the Putin European tour are Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania, then you don't worry so much about the location of Kaliningrad.

The Baltic states are NATO members. If they are attacked, it is World War 3.

 

[chief38]

In the back of Putin’s mind I believe he’s thinking how nice it would be to rebuild the Soviet Union. Unfortunately I believe that right at this time he’s got little chance of being stopped by the weak opposition at NATO and current leaders.

I’m waiting for China to move on Taiwan too.

 

[Exmilcop]

I have a buddy who's a major in the Ukrainian army. Putin's lies regarding the invasion and it's root causes are too numerous to get into here, but as my buddy said, the Ukrainian army of today is not the same one as in 2014. Russian troops are going to get a seriously bloody nose this time and when resistance collapses, as it almost surely will given the disparity in numbers, the remaining Ukrainian forces and civilian resistance are going to go underground and continue a protracted guerilla warfare campaign against the occupiers. Think Afghanistan or Viet Nam. As in any guerilla war, the authorities are going to get increasingly vicious in response and it's mostly innocent civilians who'll pay the price. That will turn more of the neutral population against the aggressors, and the cycle will continue. How truly sad.

 

[cmj8591]

Putin's resolve certainly exceeded my expectations. This invasion will case a lot of hardships for the Russian people. I did not think that he would risk bankrupting his country to regain control over Ukraine. It may be that he sees the political window closing and doesn't want to take the chance that the west ends up with a leader with a spine over the next couple of years which made it "now or never". Hopefully this will be a wake up call but past being prologue, I doubt it.

 

[OLDSTER]

Putin made a subtle hint to Russias' vast nuclear arsenal when warning NATO about interference.

 

[SteveA]

UN Security Council can't do a thing with Russia, a permanent member, holding veto power. One thought popping in my head is just how long the Russian people will put up with Putin. I think if NATO were to get involved, there is a distinct possibility of a 3rd revolution in Russia.