How should west respond to potential (likely) Russian invasion of Ukraine?

[skepticalbip]

Russia is now threatening to bombard Ukrainian cities indiscriminately.

Bombardments will stop when Ukrainians decide they prefer Russia over the West?

Do you actually think that Russia destroying their cities and killing as many of them as possible really the best way to convince them that Russia is a better friend than the E.U.?

 

[Copernicus]

Russia is now threatening to bombard Ukrainian cities indiscriminately.

Bombardments will stop when Ukrainians decide they prefer Russia over the West?

Do you actually think that Russia destroying their cities and killing as many of them as possible really the best way to convince them that Russia is a better friend than the E.U.?

In actual fact, I don't think Russia is threatening to bombard Ukrainian cities. That is what they are doing, but they are saying that they are doing the opposite. The logic seems to be that the will of the Ukrainian defenders can be overcome with such indiscriminate killing. It turns out to be strengthening the will to resist. Putin doesn't have any frame of reference to understand that. Perhaps if someone blew up his superyacht, he would find the rage within himself to understand it.

 

[Harry Bosch]

Russia is now threatening to bombard Ukrainian cities indiscriminately.

Bombardments will stop when Ukrainians decide they prefer Russia over the West?

Do you actually think that Russia destroying their cities and killing as many of them as possible really the best way to convince them that Russia is a better friend than the E.U.?

Well, do you have a better idea why Russia started this war?

 

[pood]

It’s clear from the book I’m reading by a Ukrainian historian that Kyiv Rus’ (Russ Land) predates Moscow and the later Russian empire by centuries.

Even after the zenith of Kyiv Rus’, Moscow was little more than an obscure trading outpost.

The Cyrillic alphabet used today by Ukraine and Russia came to Ukraine long before there even was a Russia or a Moscow. The book also discusses the Ukrainian hero, Volodymyr the Great (not Vladimir — that is the later Russian variant; just as they are different countries, their language, though similiar, is not the same). I already knew something about him, because I have a friend who is a deacon in a local Ukrainian Orthodox church and he commissioned me to do a pastel portrait of Volodymyr.

It was Volodymyr who brought Orthodox Christianity to Kyiv in particular and the Slavs in general, later subsumed by Moscow and a Russian empire that did not exist at the time. The book explains that Volodymyr did not have some big religious conversion — his adoption of the religion was for political purposes, to further unify Kyiv Rus’. His other options were Roman Catholicism and Islam. One of the reasons that Islam was rejected (though this may be apocryphal) is because of its prohibition on alcohol. If so, wise choice!

It is interesting to speculate on how startlingly different history would have been had Volodymyr chosen Islam.

I haven’t gotten yet to the book’s chapters on the rise of Moscow and what today we call Russia, but it’s obvious just from accepted history that Kyiv predates Moscow and Ukraine predates Russia. The author cites one scholar who likens later Moscow and Russia, in relation to Kyiv and Ukraine, the way that Gaul (later France) stood in relation to the Roman Empire.

Just a reminder when Barbos and Putin come along and try to rewrite history for propaganda purposes by stating that Ukraine never had a valid independence, but, laughably, was somehow a creation of Lenin!

 

[zorq]

I stumbled onto an interesting montage of young Russian influencers reading out the exact same lines of excuses in defence of Russia's invasion. Obviously they are reading from the same government provided script of lies. Also I was surprised to see that Russia's paid troll farm is younger and more trendy than I suspected.

Show

 

[Jayjay]

They are not from Syria. The Kharkiv administrative building is clearly visible and recognizable.

I did not say they were from Syria. I have not even watched them.
I said some of the pictures/videos attrubuted to current conflict are actually from Syria. Then there are 8 years of war in Eastern Ukraine, plenty of material to borrow from.

That's an evasion. If someone in this thread posts a video from Syria or from past wars, by all means, let's debunk them. But we're talking about the missile strike in Kharkiv, which you claim is fake. You haven't given any evidence to think so, while others have posted additional videos from the scene afterwards that show the damage.

No, it's not an evasion. It's you evading conceding nazi problem.

The "nazi problem" in Ukraine is no worse than the nazi problem in Russia. Putin acting like a little Hitler and invading its neighboring countries is by far the bigger problem.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I stumbled onto an interesting montage of young Russian influencers reading out the exact same lines of excuses in defence of Russia's invasion. Obviously they are reading from the same government provided script of lies. Also I was surprised to see that Russia's paid troll farm is younger and more trendy than I suspected.

Show

Well it isn’t as if the sky is the limit for the youth economically in a nation designed to be economically stagnant in favor of oligarchs.

 

[ZiprHead]

Russian man goes viral after smashing up his iPad in response to US sanctions

A video that appears to show a Russian man smashing his iPad in response to Apple announcing it will no longer sell products in the country has gone viral.The video, which was shared on Twitter by BBC journalist Francis Scarr, shows a man kneeling next to a young boy and using a hammer to...

www.indy100.com

A video that appears to show a Russian man smashing his iPad in response to Apple announcing it will no longer sell products in the country has gone viral.

The video, which was shared on Twitter by BBC journalist Francis Scarr, shows a man kneeling next to a young boy and using a hammer to destroy the piece of tech.

He smashes it a few times, flips it over and does the same then hands the hammer to the child and encourages him to do the same.

 

[ZiprHead]

I have my doubts.

 

[steve_bank]

The below story is just so cute! Putin is upset and issued a statement that Russia's neighbors should not escalate tensions! There's no need for tensions. He has "no bad intensions towards our neighbors"!

Putin says Russia's neighbours should not escalate tensions

Mad Vlad is earning his nickname! All of his neighbors are abandoning Russia for the west. Hungary, Moldova, Sweden, Finland and etc are all joining the west. US manufacturers are rushing stingers and Javelins to those countries. Great time to buy stock in company's making defensive weapons. Russian tanks won't have such easy passage in the future.

We never met a war we didn't like, that's for sure. Prostitution may have been the original profession, but arms manufacture will be the last, and we have invested heavily in it. Whoever wins, we walk away with the purse.

Arms races go far back in history. Siege machines like catapults. An ancient form of napalm. Bio warfare using dead animals to spread disease.

Egypt and Assyria competed over improved chariots.

 

[ZiprHead]

Ukraine claims footage shows them shooting down Russian military helicopter – video

Ukraine’s ministry of defence releases video of a missile hitting a Russian military helicopter that then crashed

www.theguardian.com

Video in the link.

 

[steve_bank]

Today Putin is saying the sanctions are a declaration of war. Given what we have seen he is capable of anything.

Would he chioose to go down in flames and destroy his country rather than admit defeat like Hitler did?

From reports from Russia there are many Russians who like Trump followers believe what Putin says.

 

[ZiprHead]

Today Putin is saying the sanctions are a declaration of war.

I was afraid that would happen.

 

[Elixir]

Ukraine claims footage shows them shooting down Russian military helicopter – video

Ukraine’s ministry of defence releases video of a missile hitting a Russian military helicopter that then crashed

www.theguardian.com

Video in the link.

Never mind ... borebos will by presently to let you know it's fake news like every other Russian defeat and humiliation.
By this time next year, the USSR will never have been broken up.

 

[ZiprHead]

Russian State TV Just Blew Up Putin’s ‘Nazi Ukraine’ Bullsh*t

Russian lawmakers suddenly blab what Putin actually wants in Ukraine—and it has nothing to do with “Nazis.”

www.thedailybeast.com

Confusion reigns on Russia’s state TV, as panicked lawmakers and pundits try to explain to the public why their country invaded Ukraine and now faces crushing Western sanctions. And in the process of zealous propagandists striving to justify the unfathomable, they’ve inadvertently revealed too much.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told state TV on Friday that President Vladimir Putin was directly involved in making command decisions with respect to Russia’s military activities in Ukraine. He urged: “It’s time to unite around our president,” and encouraged those who understand the Kremlin’s aims to “patiently explain” them to anyone who doesn’t.

Appearing on the state TV show The Evening With Vladimir Soloviev on Friday, lawmaker Andrei Kartapolov, who heads the Russian parliament’s defense committee, then set out to justify Putin’s military activities in Ukraine.

Lawmakers and pundits essentially debunked Putin’s claim that he invaded Ukraine to remove what he said is a “Nazi” government—which is, incidentally, headed by a Jewish man. Instead of demystifying the Kremlin’s agenda for the masses, state media demonstrated that in Putin’s Russia, anyone who dares to oppose Putin is described as a “Nazi,” to the point where the term is devoid of its original meaning.

On Soloviev’s show, political scientist and professor of history Elena Ponomareva asserted: “We’re fighting not only against NATO, but also against the Nazi European Union.”

Two days earlier, on a state TV show 60 Minutes, journalist Andrei Sidorchik rode the concept all the way down the hill when he exclaimed: “Joe Biden is a Nazi. The U.S. congressmen⁠—Democrat and Republican⁠—are Nazis... German chancellor is a Nazi... EU leaders are Nazis... because their sanctions are attempting to preserve neo-Nazism in Ukraine.”

 

[ZiprHead]

Never mind ... borebos will by presently to let you know it's fake news like every other Russian defeat and humiliation.
By this time next year, the USSR will never have been broken up.

I suspect Barbos has the weekend off from his duties for the IRA.

 

[steve_bank]

Today Putin is saying the sanctions are a declaration of war.

I was afraid that would happen.

Trump has caused a lot of long term damage to country and the world in his obsession with becoming a dictator.

 

[Politesse]

He keeps on rattling that sabre. Does he realize we're all watching his forces prove their incompotency as he speaks?

 

[ZiprHead]

He keeps on rattling that sabre. Does he realize we're all watching his forces prove their incompotency as he speaks?

It makes no difference what we think. It's what Russians think that counts with Putin. That's why he's cutting his country's communications with the rest of the world and criminalizing decent.

 

[steve_bank]

I am a lot closer to the end than the beginning and I've had my fun. Why not go out with a big (nuclear) bang?