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

[Copernicus]

In any case, there was no Ukraine 140 thousands of years ago. There were no Ukraine 1000 years ago, The word "Ukraine" is apparently of polish origin. Poles named the fucking place.

The etymology of the work UKrayina is obscure, because the initial preposition could historically have meant "in", giving it more the meaning of "homeland" rather than "borderland". The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth did not even form until the 16th century, but the name predates that union. Hence, it is utterly absurd to claim that Poles had anything to do with naming the region. More likely, it originated as the name of a Cossack sich, and it was historically connected with the sich around Kyiv.

However, the entire etymology argument is irrelevant. Obviously, most of the countries that exist today either did not exist a thousand years ago or had very different boundaries. That cannot be an argument to justify the Russian invasion of Ukraine any more than the claim that Russian-speaking Ukrainians are really pro-Russian. It is utterly absurd to go to war on the basis of demographic patterns that existed centuries ago. What matters is where the boundaries are today and what the people living within those borders want, not what some strutting jingoistic Russian dictator, whining over a lost empire, wants. Barbos should be ashamed of himself for promoting this claptrap.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

British launch of Trident II.
Minister of defense was on board

Photoshop.

I'm not seeing details on exactly what failed, all the video I find shows a normal looking launch and the reports said it failed because it was a test--which would imply it was something about the dummy payload and not the missile body.

Furthermore, I can't imagine a flight path like Moscow is pretending. The missile body will break up long before it reaches that kind of turn rate.

Damn man, you protest too much. The point is, British had 2 test launches in 12 years and both failed.

Calling out a stupid photoshop doesn't make it not a photoshop. Furthermore, you're not addressing the fact that they said it would have worked if it had a live warhead. That means their warhead simulator failed, not the missile.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Meanwhile, the first Abrams tank was finally caught and burned.
Patriot battery too. Apparently ukro-nazi are so desperate that they put they too close to the frontline.
then NASAMs, swedish super artillery piece as well.
Not looking good for NATO.

Russian kill counts of Ukrainian equipment vastly exceed the actual amount of equipment. You kill decoys and even if the local officer realizes it was a decoy that's not what gets reported because failure gets punished even if they had nothing to do with the failure.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I mean Russian speakers who are Ukrainian citizens living in the eastern regions of Ukraine that are currently controlled by the Russian army. Not people who were citizens of Russia at the start of the conflict. Of course the Russian army will have some people who are not ethnic Russian.

I think you got a wrong impression about the causes of conflict.
Ethnic aspect of the conflict is not as big as people might think, especially comparing other conflicts.
Russian and ukrainians were fine with each other. Problem started when some parts of ukrainians decided to build ukrainian Ukraine. Naturally these people turned out to be followers of Bandera and Hitler. It took over 30 years to make nazism somewhat normal. Then ban on russian language. Dumbest idea ever, but they were dumb nazis.
But it's true that hardcore nazis in Ukraine are small minority. However they are supported by the west.
In the end Ukrainians will realize that they were used and they will hate you all in the west.

The problem started when the people didn't like the puppet you had installed.

 

[Elixir]

Meanwhile, the first Abrams tank was finally caught and burned.
Patriot battery too. Apparently ukro-nazi are so desperate that they put they too close to the frontline.
then NASAMs, swedish super artillery piece as well.
Not looking good for NATO.

Russian kill counts of Ukrainian equipment vastly exceed the actual amount of equipment. You kill decoys and even if the local officer realizes it was a decoy that's not what gets reported because failure gets punished even if they had nothing to do with the failure.

That’s fine.
Pootey no care. Keeps them in line, facing the right way. Lots more where they came from. He only needs the number, not the actual kill. He cannot win on the ground if NATO support doesn’t flag, starting with the US. Meanwhile, give the people the news of great victories, with or without basis.
This, BTW, is how tRump has been tutored.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The invasion of Iraq went down perfectly. We coordinated with the Iraqi military to stand down and that made capturing the flag quite easy. The subsequent OCCUPATION went very very poorly, in large part due to poor planning or even a rudimentary understanding of the conditions on the ground, despite having been fed quite a bit of intelligence indicating how bad an idea an occupation was.

Meanwhile in Ukraine, Putin hasn't even gotten to the occupation portion yet, like not even remotely close. He's been fighting a stalled front war for well over a year... and that was after their pathetically failed attempt to go to Kiiv was stopped by Ukrainians flooding fields.

And even more because Iran used the situation to subvert the country. In hindsight there was no good option.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Mass Forcible Deportations of Ukrainians: From the Soviet unity of nations to Contemporary Russian War Crimes

Is there any level of truth in the article about what is happening now? Is Russia sending Ethnic Ukrainians (especially children) to distant parts of Russia to have a larger Russian population ratio in the currently occupied territories? If so, at these rather large numbers?

And unlike what Bilby thinks, I am not JAQing off with this. If this is true, this is HUGE and is a massive war crime.

The previous Soviet Era (also Tsarist era?) population transfers are seen as fact and not suffering from "The Fog of War."

You're just seeing this now? This has been known for a while, the only question being just how many. Russia hasn't even denied it, just reframed it.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Sweden officially joining NATO will put Russia in a very tight spot. Its northwestern access to the oceans will now be completely surrounded by NATO members, including the narrowest part, the  Øresund between Denmark and Sweden. There are some alternatives west of it, but the  Danish straits have Denmark and Germany on all sides.

That adds to how bottled up its southwestern fleet is. The only way out of the Black Sea is a route that is totally surrounded by Turkey:  Bosporus strait and  Sea of Marmara and  Dardanelles strait. Once out of there, it has to go through the Aegean Sea, with mostly Greek and some Turkish coastline. Once past Crete, Russia's ships have some friendly or possibly friendly countries to dock at, like Syria, Lebanon, and all the north coast of Africa. But the final feature to cross before reaching the oceans is the  Strait of Gibraltar .

And note that the route out of the Black Sea is shallow enough to force subs to surface. No hope of sneaking out. And with such constricted waters command detonated mines become a tremendous threat. Dig a bit of a hole, put a few thousand pounds of waterproof explosives in the hole, put a bit of stuff on top, run a detonator wire to the shore. Incredibly hard to sweep other than by using large quantities of explosives--daisy cutter tactics but the charge needs to be underwater and since the mine lacks the normal sensitive bits meant to set it off when the enemy is about it's much harder to kill with a shockwave.

 

[lpetrich]

Let's see if a submarine can make it through any of these straits. How deep are they?

From the Black Sea:
Bosporus 110 m - Dardanelles 55 m

From the Baltic Sea:
Øresund 40 m
Fehmarn Belt 30 m - Great Belt 60 m

I'd earlier calculated that the total vertical extent of a Kilo-class submarine is 20 meters. Such a sub could sneak through if nobody was watching, but it should be easy to set up a sonar watch system.

 

[bilby]

Let's see if a submarine can make it through any of these straits. How deep are they?

From the Black Sea:
Bosporus 110 m - Dardanelles 55 m

From the Baltic Sea:
Øresund 40 m
Fehmarn Belt 30 m - Great Belt 60 m

I'd earlier calculated that the total vertical extent of a Kilo-class submarine is 20 meters. Such a sub could sneak through if nobody was watching, but it should be easy to set up a sonar watch system.

You don't even need sonar. Few commercial shops have drafts as much as 20m, so simply stretching cables across the Dardanelles at maybe 20 and 35m depth would suffice to detect any attempt at passing by a submarine.

One could even place more solid booms at appropriate depths to block passage entirely to any submerged vessels, and it wouldn't surprise me at all if the Turks have such defences in place.

The approaches to Portsmouth, on the UK south coast, have booms in place that not only prevent submarines from sneaking in, but also to require surface vessels to navigate a slow and twisting route that keeps them under the guns of various forts for a long time during any approach.

Such defences have been commonplace in strategically important waterways since the days of wooden sailing ships, so it would be an odd ommission for them not to already exist in the Turkish straits.

 

[JohnG]

we have an evidence of NATO country planning terrorist attack against other country (Russia)

I mean Russian speakers who are Ukrainian citizens living in the eastern regions of Ukraine that are currently controlled by the Russian army. Not people who were citizens of Russia at the start of the conflict. Of course the Russian army will have some people who are not ethnic Russian.

I think you got a wrong impression about the causes of conflict.
Ethnic aspect of the conflict is not as big as people might think, especially comparing other conflicts.
Russian and ukrainians were fine with each other. Problem started when some parts of ukrainians decided to build ukrainian Ukraine. Naturally these people turned out to be followers of Bandera and Hitler. It took over 30 years to make nazism somewhat normal. Then ban on russian language. Dumbest idea ever, but they were dumb nazis.
But it's true that hardcore nazis in Ukraine are small minority. However they are supported by the west.
In the end Ukrainians will realize that they were used and they will hate you all in the west.

The problem started when the people didn't like the puppet you had installed.

Fact

 

[Elixir]

It all reminds me of the middle aged single lady who met a guy on a luxury singles cruise. He asked if she was ever married.

“Yes, three times. The first two both died from eating poison meat.”
“That’s terrible” he exclaimed. “And the third one?”
“He had an accident.”
“Oh? What happened?”
“He wouldn’t eat the poison meat.”

 

[barbos]

British launch of Trident II.
Minister of defense was on board

Photoshop.

I'm not seeing details on exactly what failed, all the video I find shows a normal looking launch and the reports said it failed because it was a test--which would imply it was something about the dummy payload and not the missile body.

Furthermore, I can't imagine a flight path like Moscow is pretending. The missile body will break up long before it reaches that kind of turn rate.

Damn man, you protest too much. The point is, British had 2 test launches in 12 years and both failed.

Calling out a stupid photoshop doesn't make it not a photoshop. Furthermore, you're not addressing the fact that they said it would have worked if it had a live warhead. That means their warhead simulator failed, not the missile.

You are still protesting too much.

 

[barbos]

Meanwhile, the first Abrams tank was finally caught and burned.
Patriot battery too. Apparently ukro-nazi are so desperate that they put they too close to the frontline.
then NASAMs, swedish super artillery piece as well.
Not looking good for NATO.

Russian kill counts of Ukrainian equipment vastly exceed the actual amount of equipment. You kill decoys and even if the local officer realizes it was a decoy that's not what gets reported because failure gets punished even if they had nothing to do with the failure.

Yes, Ukrainian Army is winning

 

[barbos]

I mean Russian speakers who are Ukrainian citizens living in the eastern regions of Ukraine that are currently controlled by the Russian army. Not people who were citizens of Russia at the start of the conflict. Of course the Russian army will have some people who are not ethnic Russian.

I think you got a wrong impression about the causes of conflict.
Ethnic aspect of the conflict is not as big as people might think, especially comparing other conflicts.
Russian and ukrainians were fine with each other. Problem started when some parts of ukrainians decided to build ukrainian Ukraine. Naturally these people turned out to be followers of Bandera and Hitler. It took over 30 years to make nazism somewhat normal. Then ban on russian language. Dumbest idea ever, but they were dumb nazis.
But it's true that hardcore nazis in Ukraine are small minority. However they are supported by the west.
In the end Ukrainians will realize that they were used and they will hate you all in the west.

The problem started when the people didn't like the puppet you had installed.

We did not install anybody, you however did.

 

[barbos]

By the way, no replies to me finally providing a link to Ukro-Nazi history book?
You have been talking trash for pages and pages and when I did what you were asking you have nothing to say?
How typical of you.

 

[zorq]

By the way, no replies to me finally providing a link to Ukro-Nazi history book?
You have been talking trash for pages and pages and when I did what you were asking you have nothing to say?
How typical of you.

Who are you talking to? Yourself?

 

[barbos]

Who are you talking to? Yourself?

Obviously, because you are nowhere to be found.

 

[zorq]

Why should I care about some unknown textbook written in a language unknown to me with unknown distribution and used in possibly zero school classrooms? Because you THINK it says something wrong, and you THINK it looks legitimate but also you admit that the publishers say they had a misprint?

Do you understand why this textbook derail is treated as just more of your BS spammed on the board and ignored? Or are you too oblivious to understand just how stupid this derail sounds?

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Russia has now lost 2 A-50 AWACs aircraft to Ukrainian anti-aircraft forces.
Russia now has only 6 such operational aircraft left. To patrol all of Russia
including its borders with China. The Russian Black Sea Fleet is not Russia's
only big problem at the moment. Wheeeeee!