Russia invades Ukraine {2022-02-24} (Part 1)

Enjoy your lumpfish eggs.

Its inconceivable that Russia would risk a nuclear accident. Some of that radation would fall on Russia

Imho it could trigger WWIII. Europe wouldn’t tolerate the nuclear fallout. Depends on the wind and where the fallout lands.

This is one of the consequences of surrounding yourself with yes men. They don’t dare tell you anything you don’t want to hear, so your decisions are based on false info. A bit like “Iraqis will welcome us as liberators.”

Let’s hope that’s the way it goes, rather than people being grateful for their sudden promotions.

Not much in the way of confirmation at this point. I’m not sure bombing a border checkpoint would get Belarus to invade, unless they understand it as a threat from Russia to do so.

I have little doubt that NATO advisors have been in Ukraine since the first shipment of anti-tank weapons, although not in combat roles. While Ukraine was familiar with the Javelin anti-tank system, a little real world experience and training in tactics would help considerably.

Is there video of this you can link to? Or is it the videos recently linked to?

Well, if you believe some photos floating around, they are just slapping some bits of yellow paint on each side, much like they wear the yellow arm bands. It seems unwise to me in a couple of different ways, but who knows?

This is a good summation. Unless Russia can come up with a gamechanger of some kind, I think they are kind of stuck where they are. They would seriously need to bring in a lot more artillery or up their aircraft bombing runs to make a difference.

Bad thing is, the chance of using chemical weapons is probably looking better to Russia right now. And who knows what they may do with the nuke plant if they admit to themselves the war is lost.

And now I see you already brought this up, but I’ll leave my post up. I really think this is a possibility, and it scares me a bit to even think about it. Dictators live in their own reality, which is bad news for everyone else.

I also wouldn’t be surprised if various western special operations forces were in Ukraine, quietly doing reconnaissance and targeting operations.

Not just concealment - possibly positioning for attack.

I have also assumed that.

Technically, nuclear reactors are built as giant bunkers, before even getting to the matter that your opponent doesn’t really want to shoot at them.

They’re probably great staging areas for a military force. That may be Russia’s goal. It also gives them a light switch on the local power grid. If they possess the factories then the lights are on. If Ukraine holds the factories, the lights are off.

Getting them out of there would require special operations for a small arms duke-out.

Alternately, you spray the thing with napalm and burn the oxygen out - likely killing all the people inside who are keeping the thing running.

None of that is fun.

Twitter has removed two posts from the Russian Embassy to the UK for fake news.

I don’t even think they could hold in a standstill for long.

Stalin-style internal purges? This cannot be good news for anyone looking for rationality or predictability in Russia.

Unless a growing number of Russian officials become concerned they’re next on the purge list and need to do something …

I’ll just say that the accusations quite probably didn’t need to trumped (Trumped?) up, they just decided to not ignore them any longer.

Thanks! Very interesting.

A purge of the FSB certainly means that Putin’s grasp on power is weakening.

And/or that he’s acting preemptively against any risk of “inside job” removal while conveniently setting up escapegoats for why things did not go splendidly.

Yes, I think Putin is looking for scapegoats. He needs someone to blame before this whole shit show rests on his shoulders alone.

So that’s basically Russia’s spy chiefs that are being arrested, right? I have to wonder if this might result in wholesale defections of their agents abroad.

I would say that is more fertile ground for doing things that need to be done, domestically in russia …

And let’s be honest:

That is the cheapest way out for russia … they could def. walk up to the west with P.'s head on a platter and say - “The time is ripe - let’s talk about how we can end all this madness, go back to pre-war situation and pretend the whole $hit-$how never have happened.”