Now, I know how my grandparents felt September 30, 1938. The world helplessly wrung it’s hands as Hitler prepared to conquer Europe. NATO was supposed to keep this from happening again. It’s just as impotent and frightened as Europe in 1938.
Is Ukraine already lost? Is there any way to prevent a sensless massacre of lives?
Biden is positioning troops in Poland. It is the next logical target for Putin. That area was a major battlefield in World War I and the Polish government was crushed in World War II.
It’s 1938 all over again. This time with tactical battlefield nukes.
Putin is reassembling the Soviet State. Adding the Ukraine is just the first step.
Our grandparents were lucky they didn’t have 24 hour news. We’ll have a front row seat.
I don’t agree with the idea that Poland or any other NATO nations are “the next logical target for Putin.” Russia may annex Belarus after they conquer Ukraine, they might mass forces on the NATO borders to muck around with NATO’s mind, but I doubt they’d actually attack NATO. If they really had to attack NATO, the logical place would be the Baltic states, not Poland.
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Once again, there are no Chamberlains in this story: the Biden administration has used clear language about this crisis, revealing the intelligence it receives in real time. As a result, no one has fallen for Russian propaganda. Blinken really has rallied allies. Harris’s declaration was crystal clear. I cannot imagine that the Trump administration would have done the same, and I am relieved Trump is not in power.
But none of us knows what our actions will look like in retrospect, in the longer light of history. Will it have been enough, the few weapons we provided, the sanctions we threatened, to deter an invasion? Were there more sophisticated weapons we could have provided in recent weeks or recent years? Is Zelensky right to hint that a further invasion of Ukraine could be just a prelude, the beginning of a wider conflict that could drag much of Europe into a war? “For eight years,” he told the conference hall, “Ukraine has been rebuffing one of the world’s biggest armies. Which stands along our borders, not the borders of the European Union.” Or not yet.
In the meantime, despite everything that was said, everything that was promised, and everything that was discussed, Ukraine will fight alone. At a dinner on Saturday night, a Ukrainian woman whom I first met in 2014—she began her career as an anti-corruption activist—stood up and told the room that not only was she returning to Kyiv, so was her husband, a British citizen. He had recently flown to London on family business, but if there was going to be a war, he wanted to be in Ukraine. The other Ukrainians in the room nodded: They were all scrambling to find flights back too. The rest of us— American, Polish, Danish, British—said nothing. Because we knew that we would not be joining them.
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It’s so damn frustrating that it’s 2022 and nothing has changed. A free and democratic country is about to be swallowed up. The death toll after war and occupation will be appalling.
There’s always another Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Napoleon, or Hitler waiting to emerge from the shadows.
You give Putin too much credit. He is a just a tin-plated tyrant trying to prop up his shaky powerbase. He is far from an Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Napoleon and far less evil than Hitler thankfully.
The suggestion that Ukraine would join NATO caused the 2014 Crimea annexation and is part of the conflict today.
But, I’m convinced Putin wants to strengthen Russia by grabbing Ukraine’s miltary and economic resources. NATO membership is just an excuse for mobolizing troops.
It is very unlikely that Putin will attack any NATO ally. Doing so would be a much higher level of confrontation and risk.
So Belarus is probably next on the Russian agenda. And then Putin will look to former Soviet states in the Caucasus region and Central Asia.
The United States is not “losing” Ukraine. Ukraine was never ours to lose. Yes, Russian expansion is a problem but this is not a matter of a vital national interest worth fighting a war over.
I can imagine that c. 2000 the Powers That Be in Russia could have settled for Ukraine to become a pliant “friendly neutral” that Russia could count on: be as formally democratic/independent as you want, but be on Russia’s side when the chips are down, and buy Russian whenever you can.
But as Putin solidified himself in power and it became clear that he prefers the old style of obedient, dependent satellite vassals, more in Ukraine began pushing back in the opposite direction towards NATO/EU alignment, and Putin of course was more than happy to do a “look at what you made me do”.
I’m speculating this is an issue of Russian domestic politics. Putin is looking for a quick military victory to shore up support for his regime among the Russian public.
News is reporting a lot of the fighting will involve missiles into the Ukraine. Then the troops roll in and mop up.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the Ukraine military replaces the democratic government and surrenders. It’s pointless to prolong the conflict. Ukraine is surrounded by Russian troops.
I am curious to see if the Ukraine responds to Russian missiles by firing theirs into Russia.
It’s ironic Ukraine originally had a huge Nuke stockpile they gave up in a treaty. Didn’t the West promise to protect the Ukraine? A empty promise because we don’t have the forces in place.
IMHO Ukraine is Putin’s last step. There’s nowhere left for him to go after that. NATO to the west, oceans to the north and east, China and his allies (the Stans) to the south. That’s it for Russia as far as building an empire goes.
This. Even if Putin doesn’t know this, or doesn’t care, the Russian generals know. They may be evil, but they aren’t suicidal. If Putin starts to attack a NATO country, they know they would lose a conventional war, and probably would remove Putin in a military coup in order to avoid nuclear war.