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

[SLD]

Russia's gas production collapses to late-stage USSR levels

Russian energy giant Gazprom said that gas production in Russia had decreased by nearly a quarter in 2023.

www.newsweek.com

Interesting. Gas production has dropped to the lowest levels since the fall of communism. Russia is facing a slow motion implosion as a result of sanctions, the war, and other factors. The only way Putin can salvage it is to declare victory and get out. State media has been preparing to follow that line for several months. He will say Russia was under invasion by NATO and claim he has stopped it. Then he will pull back to 2021 areas. Fuck ‘em, I say. Ukraine should push until they are out of Crimea as well as all of southern Ukraine. No relief from sanctions until Putin is overthrown and either dead or in jail at least.

 

[Elixir]

Ukraine should push until they are out of Crimea as well as all of southern Ukraine.

Yup. 2014 or bust. I think that's how Ukranians are seeing it right now.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

It's Ukraine's revolutionary war of independence. Ukraine certainly cannot trust anything coming out of Putinstan, a fact that's been demonstrated too many times to remember. It is only the Hitlers of the world that question Ukraine's legitimacy and wish them to fail. The irony is that so many of those idiots are in the U.S., a country which gives them a voice.

 

[TomC]

It's Ukraine's revolutionary war of independence. Ukraine certainly cannot trust anything coming out of Putinstan, a fact that's been demonstrated too many times to remember. It is only the Hitlers of the world that question Ukraine's legitimacy and wish them to fail. The irony is that so many of those idiots are in the U.S., a country which gives them a voice.

Exactly.
If Washington and Jefferson and Franklin had gone along with the concept "But you belong to us!", there'd be no USA.
Tom

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I thought this was interesting.

Russia police crisis: Burned out, disappointed and demoralised

Russia has twice the per capita police force as the U.S. or the U.K. but is in crisis. Lots of reasons discussed in the article. Good news to hear in a way but when police are actually needed they just aren't there, which is unfortunate.

 

[TV and credit cards]

Russia's gas production collapses to late-stage USSR levels

Russian energy giant Gazprom said that gas production in Russia had decreased by nearly a quarter in 2023.

www.newsweek.com

Interesting. Gas production has dropped to the lowest levels since the fall of communism. Russia is facing a slow motion implosion as a result of sanctions, the war, and other factors. The only way Putin can salvage it is to declare victory and get out. State media has been preparing to follow that line for several months. He will say Russia was under invasion by NATO and claim he has stopped it. Then he will pull back to 2021 areas. Fuck ‘em, I say. Ukraine should push until they are out of Crimea as well as all of southern Ukraine. No relief from sanctions until Putin is overthrown and either dead or in jail at least.

US gas production remains steady at record highs, 7% over 2022 production levels and the price is tanked at just over $2 per million Btu.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The corruption in Ukraine before 2014 was worse than in Russia. Way worse. After 2014 foreign aid started flooding into Ukraine. That NEVER makes corruption go down. The influx of new money will instead only hide the corruption.

I'm on another board where there's someone who lives in Kyiv has posted many times. They say that Ukraine was very corrupt until the Russian invasion of 2014 and they did a major shape-up after that and are no longer nearly so corrupt. I have no way of verifying this but neither do I see any reason for them to have lied.

Well, the chief corrupter was sent packing in that year, and the Russian one launched an invasion to express his displeasure.

On my trip to Russia in 1997, corruption was rampant, and most of the Western automobiles on Russian streets seem to have been stolen in Europe and North America and imported into Russia. Russian auto makers could not produce the same quality or sell their cars competitively, yet a great many Russians still bought them rather than pay for what they knew to be stolen vehicles. When my wife and I visited St. Petersburg, we met with a large number of Russians that I had come to know online in a virtual worlds environment as the caretaker of so-called Activeworld's "Russian World".

Everything you are saying is about corruption in Russia. Kyiv is the capital of Ukraine.

 

[Copernicus]

The corruption in Ukraine before 2014 was worse than in Russia. Way worse. After 2014 foreign aid started flooding into Ukraine. That NEVER makes corruption go down. The influx of new money will instead only hide the corruption.

I'm on another board where there's someone who lives in Kyiv has posted many times. They say that Ukraine was very corrupt until the Russian invasion of 2014 and they did a major shape-up after that and are no longer nearly so corrupt. I have no way of verifying this but neither do I see any reason for them to have lied.

Well, the chief corrupter was sent packing in that year, and the Russian one launched an invasion to express his displeasure.

On my trip to Russia in 1997, corruption was rampant, and most of the Western automobiles on Russian streets seem to have been stolen in Europe and North America and imported into Russia. Russian auto makers could not produce the same quality or sell their cars competitively, yet a great many Russians still bought them rather than pay for what they knew to be stolen vehicles. When my wife and I visited St. Petersburg, we met with a large number of Russians that I had come to know online in a virtual worlds environment as the caretaker of so-called Activeworld's "Russian World".

Everything you are saying is about corruption in Russia. Kyiv is the capital of Ukraine.

True, but I was only trying to provide an illustration of the culture of corruption inside of Russia, as opposed to Ukraine. My position on Ukraine is that the corruption, while still a very serious problem, is not as bad as in Russia. And that is just an opinion based on my very limited knowledge of what conditions are like in both countries today. Ukraine is trying to meet standards for membership in the EU and NATO, whereas Russia is struggling to survive under the rule of a thoroughly corrupt leadership whose main goal is to keep a thuggish dictator in power.

 

[barbos]

Meanwhile "Pro-russian" party won in Slovakia. So we have two countries in EU which are not run by Nuland.

 

[barbos]

Ukraine certainly cannot trust anything coming out of Putinstan

You are pathetic. It is the west who can't be trusted. Not after Merkel and the rest the western scum admitted that Minsk 2 was a ploy to give themselves time to arm and train ukrainian nazis.

 

[barbos]

Biden administration is pathetic. They think Russia will agree Korea style freeze.
And british scum has an ingenious plan of creating free zones by sending their "training" instructors to Ukraine.
And they want to send their ship to Black Sea to escort ukrainian ships. Yeah, right, Turkey will let that happen.

 

[barbos]

The corruption in Ukraine before 2014 was worse than in Russia. Way worse. After 2014 foreign aid started flooding into Ukraine. That NEVER makes corruption go down. The influx of new money will instead only hide the corruption.

Corruption has always been worse in Ukraine than in Russia. It became apparent when Crimea went back to Russia and lots of officials were sent there to run things. And now, youtube is filled with amazed ukrainian refugees in Russia comparing things in former Ukraine and Russia.

 

[barbos]

Ukraine should push until they are out of Crimea as well as all of southern Ukraine. No relief from sanctions until Putin is overthrown and either dead or in jail at least.

In your wet dream. Ukraine is actually running out of "pushers"
there are (according to russian claims) 10K ukrainian soldiers who surrendered to russian army.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Ukraine should push until they are out of Crimea as well as all of southern Ukraine. No relief from sanctions until Putin is overthrown and either dead or in jail at least.

In your wet dream. Ukraine is actually running out of "pushers"
there are (according to russian claims) 10K ukrainian soldiers who surrendered to russian army.

Yes... which explains why Russia didn't actually make any progress wherever that allegedly occurred. Also, it is doubtful Russia could manage such a surrender.

 

[barbos]

Some sane assholes in the west accepted that despite western media propaganda lies, ukrainian counter-offensive was an utter, 100% failure.
And they suggest that Ukraine needs to cancel it immediately and go on defence. But this is not acceptable for the west politically.
And it is too late militarily, though russians would prefer things stay the same - ukrainians keep attacking and destroying themselves in the process.

 

[barbos]

Ukraine should push until they are out of Crimea as well as all of southern Ukraine. No relief from sanctions until Putin is overthrown and either dead or in jail at least.

In your wet dream. Ukraine is actually running out of "pushers"
there are (according to russian claims) 10K ukrainian soldiers who surrendered to russian army.

Yes... which explains why Russia didn't actually make any progress wherever that allegedly occurred. Also, it is doubtful Russia could manage such a surrender.

Russia does not define progress the way your propaganda does.
10K is not a lot of people to manage, especially when these people surrender willingly.

 

[barbos]

Speaking of "progress". Someone did some calculations and in 2023 (the year of the great ukrainian counter-offensive) Russia actually gained more territory than Ukraine.

And again, Russia does not care about territorial gains for the sake of them. They only care about decimating ukrainian military at a lowest cost to themselves. Territorial gains will come later - after collapse of the current regime in Kiev.

 

[SLD]

Ukraine should push until they are out of Crimea as well as all of southern Ukraine. No relief from sanctions until Putin is overthrown and either dead or in jail at least.

In your wet dream. Ukraine is actually running out of "pushers"
there are (according to russian claims) 10K ukrainian soldiers who surrendered to russian army.

So you’ve captured Kiev, then? At least Orkhiv? Kherson? No?

Russia‘s wet dream is to be able to cross a river.

 

[barbos]

Ukraine should push until they are out of Crimea as well as all of southern Ukraine. No relief from sanctions until Putin is overthrown and either dead or in jail at least.

In your wet dream. Ukraine is actually running out of "pushers"
there are (according to russian claims) 10K ukrainian soldiers who surrendered to russian army.

So you’ve captured Kiev, then? At least Orkhiv? Kherson? No?

Russia‘s wet dream is to be able to cross a river.

I noticed you omitted Bakhmut
Let me ask you. How many times do I have to explain to you the same thing?

 

[zorq]

When Ukraine tried to break Russia's elastic defense the whiplash was painful and costly. So Ukraine changed tactics. now they are only trying to stretch Russia's elastic defence until it exhausts and sags enough to collapse.

This strategy may work because Ukraine thinks they know a secret.

Putin's popularity is lean. Proof of this lies in the Wagner mutiny. Putin can not call for another round of mobilization or risk another stronger mutiny. Ukraine knows this too.

That is why Ukraine has been feinting at offence when they have really been just grinding Russian soldiers and equipment up in the most efficient pattern available to them.

I feel that the fact that Barbos is advertising the opposite POV, sourced, no doubt, directly from Russian state propaganda channels, means that Ukraine is right. I think narcisists and fascists like Putin and Trump can't help but project their own weaknesses on to their enemies. And Barbos telling us that Russia is grinding up Ukraine is almost certainly evidence to me that Russia's conscripts are suffering greatly.


Pretty soon Putin will have to choose between losing the war due to the attrition Ukraine is inflicting or losing his life when rebellion breaks out after another round of mobilization.