Umm, you realize that large portions of the Donbass region are similar, right? Or do you consider that insignificant if Russia decides to take it?
Ah, so we’re at “both sides” now. Brilliant piece of analysis there.
I was replying to your point that ‘Russia took Crimea with 20-30K troops’, and explaining why that was the case.
It was an entirely different situation from a major invasion of Ukraine.
Do you seriously believe that America never uses propaganda and false information? What about the WMD in Iraq? What about the Gulf of Tonkin incident that was used to justify the war in Vietnam, that Robert McNamara eventually admitted never happened?
Ok, so now you’re only saying they won’t have a “major” invasion? You believe a smaller invasion is any less bad? I’d say it would be worse, since he actually does seem to enough troops in the area to grab the Donbass and possibly go so far as getting land access to Crimea.
I’m not saying Russia doing that is a certainty, but they seem to have plenty of troops in the area to accomplish that if they decided that was their goal. They took Crimea with far less, and the population of most of the area seems to be of a similar political bent.
Kindly don’t put words in my mouth or distort what I’m saying to suit yourself.
…and now you’ve slipped from “both sides” to “whatabout” while challenging me to defend a strawman. Very weak tea.
If you use the word, I can hardly be accused of putting it there. Additionally, it was a question.
Not all land is equally valuable. Huge amounts of land in Siberia don’t equal much smaller amounts in Europe. Location, location, location.
Russia would have to attack a NATO country before that happens.
Fundamental difference is that Communism as an ideology had considerable appeal in Eastern Europe, and people looking to the SU as the leaders of the Cummunist world might favor them. In this case, there are no ideological reasons for anyone to favor being invaded by Russia.
These are very different things than the Russian military buildup near Ukraine.
The “WMDs in Iraq” were based off of extremely flimsy evidence. But the Russian buildup is plain as day. Satellite images show massive concentrations of Russian troops, tanks, fuel, artillery, supplies, etc. on Ukraine’s borders. None of that is imaginary or made-up. It’s seen plainly with the eyes.
And it’s not just U.S. intelligence saying this. All other nations’ intel agencies - France, Sweden, UK, Poland, etc. - show the exact same thing: Russia is massing a large army for a possible invasion.
Russia has more land in Europe than any other European country.
If Russia launches a wholesale invasion, I wonder if Ukraine would consider responding with a suicide mission to punch Russia in the mouth a la Doolittle’s raid on Tokyo. If Russia goes all out, Ukraine will be decimated anyway; why not send all of their air forces against a vulnerable target in Russia like a nuclear power plant? Even if 95% of their aircraft were shot down, a large enough strike force might be able to penetrate air defenses to deliver a smart bomb on a reactor. It beats letting their air force be destroyed on the ground.
Everybody should stop with the specious arguments about whether Russia does or doesn’t need “land”. It’s like saying that 9/11 was about denying the use of commercial real estate. Though it did have that effect, that’s was never the primary intent.
The Ukraine conflict isn’t about agriculture or habitable area. This is about Russia’s desire for a certain security footprint, but more importantly, the settlement of historical revanchist grievances. Ukraine is a non-fungible goal here, there is no substitute. That’s why Russia deployed over half their maneuver forces to the border, and when asked to back down, gave a list of utterly unserious demands.
I’ve also been wondering about the Ukrainians’ last-resort options. In the end, it seems to me that “suicide missions” are just not worth it. If Ukraine bombs Russia or goes after Putin personally, they will only get hit 10 times harder.
But you raise a good point – how should the Ukrainians best fight a war they cannot win?
The one thing that I’m curious about - that no one seems to be interested in reporting on - is that the troops are there “officially” for the purpose of running some fake, practice campaigns for training purposes.
Well so…are they practicing? Are they just sitting there, staring at the border? Are they building rocket launchers, pointed at Ukraine?
This seems like something that the news should be able to tell us.
That’s what about 99% of the soldiers in the world actually do, anyway, so, yeah, time well spent.
Well, if that’s the case then invasion is inevitable.
Well so, let’s say that there’s a big oil deposit just below Mongolia. Do you think that Russia would want to take ownership of that land or no? Or, let’s say that North-East Turkey was rich in uranium. Think that Russia would be sending them messages, “Hey man, we just want the uranium, but you can keep the land”? Or they’d try to take ownership of the land on top of the uranium?
A military takes land. If you just want a particular material, you can buy the right to it, through a contract. If you want to give your citizens an easy trip to the beaches of the Black Sea, you can form visa pacts for easy travel; you can get permission to build a bridge from the other government; and you can form strong political ties of trust and mutual support.
A military takes land. You use the military when what you want is occupation of that particular piece of dirt, because you’re not willing to share. You’re not willing to just have the uranium, you’re not willing to just be able to go there, freely. You want to own it all.
Technically. But Ukraine is a lot closer to the heart of things and has coastline etc. I believe there are strategic reasons for Ukrainian land to be valuable to Russia.
Which is not to say that’s necessarily the primary Putin goal here. My point was just that saying “Russia has an enormous amount of land already” doesn’t even begin to address the land angle.
Not share it with them? It’s all over the place and very public. We’re here discussing the numbers of troops Russia has deployed, their location, how they’re getting ready to go on maneuvers in the next few days, and so on. We got that information from CNN, the BBC, the New York Times, our local paper, etc, not because some hacker released top secret Pentagon intelligence. I assume the Ukrainian generals have access to the same information.
I’m not old enough to remember the Gulf of Tonkin. The WMD in Iraq was an obvious lie, even at that time.