Putin's massing his troops on the border, Biden's wagging his finger, Zelensky is assembling an army and reserve of half a million, Nato are increasing their presence, Johnson's been chest beating, the UK and USA are sending weapons systems, and the EU has been typically silent and done precisely nothing. Putin clearly thinks Ukraine should return to being a Soviet satellite, but it's now an independent country so has no desire to return to subservience. Nevertheless Putin is demanding Ukraine never joins NATO or the EU. All complicated by the gas pipeline that runs through Ukraine from Russia and supplies 25% of the EU's gas. IF Russia invades it's probably not going to be a border skirmish, it's more likely to be a large scale conflict that drags on for years. And if Putin gets control of Ukraine what message will that send to Xi Jinping regarding Taiwan?
Forget NATO, Biden & Johnson. FF now has a thread, it just got real for Russia. Looks inevitable, doesn't it? If they take Ukraine whats to stop them continuing?
No chance it gets that far imo. People overestimate how strong Russia actually is, I think they'd be silly to get embroiled in a messy military campaign in Ukraine and think it will prove to be pretty tough and a drain on their relatively weak economy.
The West will be hoping it turns out to be another Afghanistan for Russia. Send in the supplies and train the Ukrainians but let them do all the fighting and drain Russian resources.
I can certainly see it being another Chechen war, lasting 10 years and costing Russia billions. NATO will supply Ukraine both militarily and financially, so effectively another proxy war with Ukraine getting decimated along the way. No way any NATO countries will be putting boots on the ground though.
putin needs to remember that Ukraine isnt crimea. Crimea viewed itself as Russian, so resistance was little . Ukraine largely views itself as a sovereign state . I can see support for returning to Russia being high among more eastern Ukrainians of Russian origin , but resistance will be high among the rest of Ukraine . the Russians will lose a lot of men if they do this , there is no guarantee they will win either. History shows large military powers invading smaller and poorer nations can have disastrous consequences (cough cough USA and Vietnam )
I'm with the Germans on this , it's none of our business so let the 250,000 Ukrainian Soldiers deal with the problem . We've got enough problems in this country to worry about & then take into account the false wars we've already had with Iraq & Afghanistan hopefully we'll take a step backwards from this & would have learnt our lesson in when we butt our noses in we leave other countries in worse conditions than when we arrived .
Nobody is suggesting we send troops to Ukraine, and this isn't a case of the West trying to effect regime change, it's Putin that's supposedly wanting to do that. Ukraine is the 2nd biggest country on the continent after Russia, so if nothing else it's a massive buffer between Putin and Europe.
Euronews was reporting we've already sent troops , weapons & ammo as well as sending home lots of folk from our embassy , might not be many troops but that's what's been reported .
We've sent some training people to train them with the new weapons we've sent, we haven't sent any ground troops. Withdrawing non-essential personnel from the embassy makes sense with a megalomaniac at the border.
We couldn't afford a proper war, so just sending our excess weapons to Ukraine is the best course of action. My brother's wife is Russian and so it will be interesting to ask her view on it since they were just over there a couple weeks ago... wonder if any domestic pressures are causing Putin to up the big strong man rhetoric. Or whether the view over here is totally different. You have to be fair to them, why would they want Ukraine to join NATO fully. That would essentially put US troops on the ground right at the doorstep. I reckon this could end up being about increasing the area under Russian influence/control at the border so that they have some buffer zone. I cannot forsee them "conquering" the whole nation though. Nothing is ever an exact comparison, but imagine if Russia was pushing for a formal military alliance with Mexico... it would be full on World War 3!
Or if Russia wanted to site nuclear weapons in Cuba? I think there's a significant difference between NATO bordering Russia and Russia bordering Ukraine - NATO doesn't tend to invade countries in order to expand its sphere of influence, Putin/Russia does.
Tbf how many countri s has Russia formally invaded under Putin? By my count, Georgia? Does the Chechnyan conflict count? They annexed Crimea but then that went to a referendum iirc. I don't think we can give the US a pass when it comes to hawkish foreign policy in order to increase/protect its sphere of influence.
to be honest , it wouldn’t surprise me if Putin tried to invade all the former soviet countries if he could get away with it . It’s been claimed his family suffered big time from the fall of the Soviet Union . I’m willing to bet he would want to bring the Soviet Union back in a heartbeat if he could . Russia is essentially a dictatorship as it is, he would have no problem bringing other countries under his wing. You could argue that there is the reason of not wanting a nato ally so close to his borders , but any membership of Ukraine to nato (unlikely) would pretty much end that pipe dream of his too. problem for Putin too is not everyone will remember the Soviet Union fondly either . When I lived in London , I was taken aback at how much the polish hate the Russians
As much as an exhibitionst as Putin is, he's still an ex KGB recruiter. I believe it's against his nature to share his intentions with the entire world. I think (and certainly hope) it's just a case of him liking the attention he's getting and nothing much comes out of this whole thing.
That is never going to happen. Russia would collapse it they tried that. Be realistic. People need to stop viewing Russia through the same Soviet Union prism.
