Has Putin lost his mind?

[2mAn]

Im sure this will bring out the trolls and the bots... but WTF is this guy thinking?...

Is this going to be another endless war or will this be over fairly quickly with long-term repercussions?

[roguetoaster]

This has been telegraphed for the last two weeks, and squawked about for years, anyone who is surprised is being blind. He is playing the role of strongman just right.

The active war will be over before the weekend, maybe even by noon local time tomorrow if Russia stops not too far west of Kiev. It is clear that Ukraine is unable to actually hold, and this is not surprising either. I sincerely hope that Ukraine does not plan to fall back to the urban areas and fight there.

The repercussions are unknown, if the West actually sacks up and locks Russia out of financial processes it will get crazy, especially as it will further tie Russia and China together. The near term, costs will go up, markets will destabilize, Europeans will suffer for the remainder of the winter.

I am actually curious what POTUS says since the conference was pushed back 90 minutes and Question Hour in the UK produced nothing new.

[2mAn]

I thought it was just chest beating and that he wouldnt actually go through with any action

[roguetoaster]

I thought it was just chest beating and that he wouldnt actually go through with any action

There was a Russian military centric holiday on the 23rd, instead of ceremonies and parades many nearby troops seemed to have leisure time/were seen stocking up on portable foodstuffs.

Two/three days prior there were a series of preplanned statements made by Ukrainian separatists and the Russian government following what seemed to be a large scale separatist strike on Ukraine. Presumably this was to bait Ukraine in to a strike in to occupied territory, it failed.

In the months leading up to invasion massive stockpiles of material were forward staged. Forces were martialed under the pretense of exercises with no exercises taking place or announced as per usual.

Eight years ago Russia seized almost all of Crimea and integrated it in to the Russian Federation. However, it was not the prize it should have been considering how Ukraine mostly cut water supply from their territory, and multiple times in the last eight years Putin threatened action over this single issue.

Whatever pretext is ultimately decided to be the one that caused Putin to invade doesn't matter, it's been years in the making, even since we let Russia grab a chunk of Georgia in a rather similar way.

[roguetoaster]

Woah, unexpected, Ukrainian forces were able to retake a major airport to the NW of Kyiv against admittedly lightly equipped Russian airborne units. Surprising reversal, and undoubtedly a setback for Russia, who has probably committed 40% of their local forces to combat at this time.

Edit:

Fighting continues around the airport, but this unexpected resistance may be intended to give more civilians time to leave town before dawn.

Significant additional Russian forces have entered Ukraine, ~2/3s of the main battle group are probably across territorial lines.

[MrBurgundy]

This is Russia being Russia

Russia will methodically take/accomplish what they want with nothing really in their way.

[roguetoaster]

This is Russia being Russia

Russia will methodically take/accomplish what they want with nothing really in their way.

I think if we look at Russia, which equals Putin, more as a traditional feudal system we come closer to understanding how it actually works. Putin, the monarch expects, but also owes loyalty to his lords, who are extremely self interested and fickle. If sufficiently annoyed, the lords can depose him, so he needs to demonstrate power and benefit his subordinates.

Outside of Russia you have China, the opportunist who would be happy to either befriend or destroy Russia; there is Turkey, a country Russia can't go directly to war with for religious reasons; there's Scandanavia, which isn't worth the trouble; there's the Poland to Italy NATO hard line that Russia cannot pass without a real armed conflict, and there's the US/Japan on the other end. So, yeah, there is a lot in the way, but SE Europe is more or less Putin's to play with.

[Vincenze]

Isn't it the same when West Germany occupied East Germany?
Maybe, 80% of East Germans supported it, but 20% didn't.

There was a BMW factory in Eisenach. When West Germans took it, they quickly demolished it and kicked out the workers.

[roguetoaster]

Isn't it the same when West Germany occupied East Germany?
Maybe, 80% of East Germans supported it, but 20% didn't.

There was a BMW factory in Eisenach. When West Germans took it, they quickly demolished it and kicked out the workers.

No, not at all. There is about a third of Ukraine that might be interested in an ethnic/language sense, but I don't think many Ukrainians want to be Russians or live under Putin.

It would be more like the US invading Canada. Sure, lots of the world sees us as more or less interchangeable, but the people don't want it, even if they could accept it on the whole.

At the end of the day, being conquered is not generally something any sovereign nation wants.

[2mAn]

Ukraine said it will arm any citizen who is willing to fight. They said something to the effect of "they will see our faces, not our backs"...

[roguetoaster]

Ukraine said it will arm any citizen who is willing to fight. They said something to the effect of "they will see our faces, not our backs"...

Ukraine, as of about 2hrs ago has prohibited fighting age males from leaving the country and has ordered general mobilization.

While Ukraine is doing much better than it looked earlier, Russian forces will reposition and bring copious armor to the front in the overnight. We can likely expect severe civilian casualties tomorrow as artillery support fully comes to bear following force recon movements overnight.

The noose is tightening, but as of now Ukraine still has air assets, air defenses, and some armor. That said, without internationally enforced no fly zones it is unlikely that Ukrainian forces will be able to withstand the multipoint Russian attack, and a no fly zone looks extremely unlikely.

Basically, the main battle will probably kick off tomorrow, but Ukraine is losing and it looks like that will continue barring international intervention.

Best guesses on casualties as of now, under 5k combined.

[Vincenze]

It would be more like the US invading Canada. Sure, lots of the world sees us as more or less interchangeable, but the people don't want it, even if they could accept it on the whole.

It's actually pretty common to bomb dictators who ban peaceful trucker freedom protests.
---
But a more valid comparison would be this scenario:
French nationalists seize power in Canada. Now, everybody must speak French only, all English schools are closed. All businesses that deal with English and Spanish-speaking countries must close immediately. Ontario immediately joins the USA, other provinces are not as lucky.

[roguetoaster]

We could shortly see the very first open terrain main battle tank on main battle tank conflict since the last Arab-Israeli war with a Russian armored group moving directly towards a Ukrainian tank group.

Kyiv is experiencing less artillery fire than expected, looks like Russia is setting up for an encirclement of the city or a funneling move to push forces SW. However, as Russian forces push to Kyiv rapidly they are bypassing Ukrainian pockets, which may indicate that Russia does not intend to occupy the country, but rather just replace the government with their own.

[nando]

A long time ago now - maybe in 2008, or even earlier - I remember reading an article in a right-leaning publication that said something like this:

Most people see the title of "President Putin". The only thing I see are 3 letters: KGB.

Wish I remember who said that quote or where I read it. It stuck with me though.

Putin isn't stupid, he's probably not actually crazy, and he knows the art of manipulation like nobody else with that amount of political power. People like Trump, who is also adept at manipulation - are mere pawns to his will. The perfect definition of "useful idiots".

I have been thinking that we just need to admit to ourselves that Russia (the government) has been at war with us already for years. It may have not been a war with guns and bombs (but come on - it really was - in Syria, and in Ukraine 8 years ago). They have attacked our elections, they have attacked our corporations, our technology, our press and our networks. It's a "stealth war", but it's still war, as sucky as that is to think about. It's like the first step in the process of recovery.

The endless cyberattacks have almost all been at least Russian government sanctioned, if not outright carried out by the government itself. Our company was a victim to one of these attacks, during the middle of the COVID pandemic - there was 2 weeks where we were shut down entirely and all of our data was basically gone. It was probably one of the scariest moments of my life. I happened to be one of the people who noticed the ransom notes and looked into who the attacker was and what it meant.

Thankfully, we worked together and were able to recover (and I don't know every detail - but I'm pretty sure we never paid those assholes a single cent). If you care about cybersecurity at all, you've probably read at least one article about the attackers in a news story somewhere during the last couple years.

We were probably one of thousands of companies across the US affected by similar attacks - you have never heard of us, so you probably haven't heard of most of them either. Also, our IT aren't actually idiots. They took action that saved our data (which if lost entirely - could have meant the end of the company).

But when you have the force of a corrupt dictator against a tiny privately own corporation with just a few hundred employees, who do you think has the upper hand?

I wasn't at all surprised by the attack on the Colonial pipeline. Those guys looked stupid too - but come on. Had you ever heard of Colonial before that attack? They may have been a critical portion of infrastructure - but so is everyone else. There were mistakes of course, but even so there's no way they had the resources to withstand the constant assault of a hostile nation that implicitly advocates for such attacks.

It also seemed to me at the time as a simple trial of what they could really do. If you rely on the internet for anything, which of course you do - you have no choice - you should be afraid of what happens if this escalates. Maybe we can carry out similar attacks or worse, but that doesn't mean we won't be affected by the fallout.

And now, the intentions and actions of Russia are clear for everyone to see, if we are willing. I hope it doesn't get worse, but I can't help but think of the Nazi invasion of Poland and everything that followed after that. Nobody wanting to admit what was happening, even though it was obvious for all to see.

Oh, don't forget the embarrassing performance of the Russian cheaters during the 2022 Olympics. I kept thinking that they were just waiting for it to be over to make their move into Ukraine. It's too bad a talented 15 year old girl had to take the fall for the absolute corruption of the 'ROC' and the government that backs it.

[nando]

Isn't it the same when West Germany occupied East Germany?
Maybe, 80% of East Germans supported it, but 20% didn't.

There was a BMW factory in Eisenach. When West Germans took it, they quickly demolished it and kicked out the workers.

Wait, what? That is some seriously fucked up revisionist history.