# Russia invades Ukraine {2022-02-24} (Part 1)
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Tags:** ukraine-invasion, breaking-news
**Created:** [February 24, 2022, 8:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037 "2022-02-24T08:30:03Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 226
### Author:  [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2022, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/4565 "2022-04-14T17:40:14Z")
> [@Horatius](#):
>
> The only way Putin’s war in Ukraine makes any sense at all is if Putin really thought Ukraine would just roll over for him
That’s what everyone thought would happen, so it’s not like it was a ridiculous prediction.
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### Author:  [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2022, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/4566 "2022-04-14T17:46:51Z")
> [@smithsb](#):
>
> Heavy cloud cover and storms in the area. The US does have images but so far hasn’t tweeted any while sitting on the shitter. [Images might reveal US capabilities, classified information]
I think they’ll come out after the clouds clear. Low resolution. Not the hi-res the intelligence agencies see.
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### Author:  [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2022, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/4567 "2022-04-14T17:58:44Z")
> [@Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](#):
>
> I cannot imagine why. It is an elderly ship and fighting in what is mostly a land-war.
It is still a threat to targets on Ukraine’s coast and could have protected other ships from attack. Now it can’t.
The sailors, without a ship, might as well be working in a Costco.
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### Author:  [@Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_was_in_Saudi)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2022, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/4568 "2022-04-14T18:02:18Z")
> [@RickJay](#):
>
> The sailors, without a ship, might as well be working in a Costco.
Them working is a Costco will not help us win this war.
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2022, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/4569 "2022-04-14T18:04:36Z")
[https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-warns-baltic-nuclear-deployment-if-nato-admits-sweden-finland-2022-04-14/](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-warns-baltic-nuclear-deployment-if-nato-admits-sweden-finland-2022-04-14/)
> LONDON, April 14 (Reuters) - One of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest allies warned NATO on Thursday that if Sweden and Finland joined the U.S.-led military alliance then Russia would deploy nuclear weapons and hypersonic missiles in an exclave in the heart of Europe…
>
> Lithuania said Russia’s threats were nothing new and that Moscow had deployed nuclear weapons to Kaliningrad long before the war in Ukraine.
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### Author:  [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2022, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/4570 "2022-04-14T18:08:39Z")
The next time Putin threatens nukes, I want to see Biden and all European leaders film themselves with biggest, jaw-gaping, 15-second yawn they can come up with, like an egg-eating snake’s.
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### Author:  [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2022, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/4571 "2022-04-14T18:11:26Z")
> [@Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](#):
>
> Them working is a Costco will not help us win this war.
Not sure how it’d hurt, and I wish death upon no one. If you can remove them from effective participation in the war without killing them isn’t that ideal?
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### Author:  [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2022, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/4572 "2022-04-14T18:12:30Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#):
>
> One of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s closest allies warned NATO on Thursday that if Sweden and Finland joined the U.S.-led military alliance then Russia would deploy nuclear weapons and hypersonic missiles in an exclave in the heart of Europe…
Does anyone believe Russia doesn’t already have nukes there?
They signed TWO treaties specifically stating a sovereign nation has the right to choose to join a defensive alliance.
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### Author:  [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2022, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/4573 "2022-04-14T18:12:37Z")
> [@RickJay](#):
>
> Not sure how it’d hurt, and I wish death upon no one. If you can remove them from effective participation in the war without killing them isn’t that ideal?
No, killing them removes them from the war permanently while also lowering morale for surviving troops. The more Russians dead the less combat capability the surviving ones have.
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### Author:  [@Folacin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Folacin)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2022, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/4574 "2022-04-14T18:28:33Z")
> [@wolfpup](#):
>
> _we in the West_ are supposed to be the morally inferior ones!
Are we willing to invade a sovereign state to impose our superior moral standards (I mean lately)? Check, and mate!
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### Author:  [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2022, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/4575 "2022-04-14T18:45:28Z")
> [@RickJay](#):
>
> Does anyone believe Russia doesn’t already have nukes there?
No. It’s an open secret like Israel’s nukes. The Baltic states know they are in Kaliningrad and Russia wants them to know that. Russia has already played that card.
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### Author:  [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2022, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/4576 "2022-04-14T18:46:18Z")
> [@Folacin](#):
>
> Are we willing to invade a sovereign state to impose our superior moral standards (I mean lately)? Check, and mate!
That’s a valid point, philosophically speaking. Human nature is the same everywhere. But the difference between anything objectionable that Western nations have done in modern times – either domestically or internationally – and the current barbaric atrocities being perpetrated by Russia in Ukraine – is so fundamentally different that it brooks no comparison.
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### Author:  [@Fiendish\_Astronaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiendish_Astronaut)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2022, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/4577 "2022-04-14T18:49:13Z")
> [@RickJay](#):
>
> Does anyone believe Russia doesn’t already have nukes there?
The Lithuanian Defence Minister today: "The current Russian threats look quite strange, when we know that, even without the present security situation, they keep the weapon 100 km from Lithuania’s border,” Anusauskas was quoted by Lithuania’s BNS wire as saying.
“Nuclear weapons have always been kept in Kaliningrad … the international community, the countries in the region, are perfectly aware of this. … They use it as a threat,” he added.
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### Author:  [@Akaj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Akaj)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2022, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/4578 "2022-04-14T18:53:40Z")
> [@wolfpup](#):
>
> > [@Folacin](#):
> >
> > Are we willing to invade a sovereign state to impose our superior moral standards (I mean lately)? Check, and mate!
>
> That’s a valid point, philosophically speaking. Human nature is the same everywhere. But the difference between anything objectionable that Western nations have done in modern times – either domestically or internationally – and the current barbaric atrocities being perpetrated by Russia in Ukraine – is so fundamentally different that it brooks no comparison.
Although, if our invasion of Iraq had bogged down and started taking heavy casualties without coming close to winning Baghdad, you can bet there would have plenty of voices on our side urging the military to bomb Iraqi cities indiscriminately. Whether our leaders at the time would have heeded those voices is an unknown I’d prefer not to ponder.
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### Author:  [@Al128](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Al128)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2022, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/4579 "2022-04-14T19:01:59Z")
> [@RickJay](#):
>
> The reason the ship was lost is that the common effect of an anti-ship missile is starting fires that cannot be controlled, resulting in - as we saw with Moskva - the crew having to get in the lifeboats.
could you expand on that?
what’s the pathway for this? the explosives? … are they different than for other war assets? any additives or so?
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### Author:  [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2022, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/4580 "2022-04-14T19:05:44Z")
> [@Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](#):
>
> I cannot imagine why. It is an elderly ship and fighting in what is mostly a land-war.
It’s another expensive loss for Russia they can’t easily replace.
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### Author:  [@Al128](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Al128)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2022, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/4581 "2022-04-14T19:08:43Z")
> [@Paul\_was\_in\_Saudi](#):
>
> Them working is a Costco will not help us win this war.
well, there is at least the expectation of them not burning down Costco … so there’s that
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### Author:  [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2022, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/4582 "2022-04-14T19:10:32Z")
> [@Al128](#):
>
> could you expand on that?
>
> what’s the pathway for this? the explosives? … are they different than for other war assets? any additives or so?
The explosion of the warhead starts fires, but the unspent fuel in the missile is also a tremendous vector of uncontrollable fire.
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### Author:  [@Al128](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Al128)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2022, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/4583 "2022-04-14T19:20:57Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#):
>
> [https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-warns-baltic-nuclear-deployment-if-nato-admits-sweden-finland-2022-04-14/](https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-warns-baltic-nuclear-deployment-if-nato-admits-sweden-finland-2022-04-14/)
just to troll the russkies:
well, if you must - be my guest…
but make at least sure you get the whole maintainance fiasco and “accidental fire” situations sorted out - we don’t want to have to send our firetrucks over there
;o)
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### Author:  [@Walken\_After\_Midnight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walken_After_Midnight)
#### Post date: [April 14, 2022, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/russia-invades-ukraine-2022-02-24-part-1/960037/4584 "2022-04-14T20:02:30Z")
>
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