He even talked about it in his book Accidental Superpower nearly 10 years ago. His writings/videos have been instrumental in helping me to make some sense of what's going on in Ukraine
Absolutely. The signals were there but most of us choose to ignore it. For those who still put out podcasts who still claim that supporting Ukraine is supporting nazis, I get that you’re thinking of preventing a nuclear war but you’re not seeing the big picture. You’re completely full of BS and if you’re thinking that you’re doing journalism, you should go back to school
Attempts to meet this expansion with appeasement will end in WW3. A forceful response (something akin to what's happening now, only more and faster) can forestall it by ensuring Russia loses. It has to lose, and it has to be unequivocally seen to lose, for this fascist fantasy to end.
I'm a fluent Russian speaker and sometimes I watch a few Russian nightly "talk-shows", start to finish, to get a feel for how Putin's propaganda machine is changing over time. Well, since February, it's been in such overdrive, pumping Russians full of vicious hatred of all things "Western" and delusions of grandeur, that I honestly think it's possible for the regime to lose control. They are convincing the riff-raff that they're about to take on NATO and win. Maybe they don't have intentions of starting WW3, but what if Putin is offed or dies suddenly and the populace, driven to such jingoist frenzy that it lost all sense of reality and actually believes they can take on NATO and win, puts an even more evil and reckless "rebuilder of empire" on the throne? Even authoritarian dictatorships are affected by the mood of the mob.
Does the west actually believe that Russia has money or resources to expand? It can barely fight in Ukraine. It's a broke country with a superiority complex and any thought of expansion is just nonsensical.
> On any given day you can read both that Russia is struggling and that Ukraine is ceding territory fast.
Those aren't incompatible situations in this kind of war. Russia is advancing fairly quickly (though not without significant reverses) since focusing on taking a strip of southern territory rather than decapitating and forcing the surrender of the Ukrainian regime.
There are also still taking insanely high casualties and material losses that cannot be replenished on any reasonable timescale (Ukraine is taking high casualties, proportionately more than Russia, but also defending their homes; this matters in terms of casualties that can be taken without collapsing the populations will to fight; and Ukraine is getting a flood of material from outside supporters.)
While there's wide variance in estimates, Russia's casualties in its four month war look to be at least in the neighborhood of those the Soviet Union took in its decade long war in Afghanistan, which was widely seen as the USSRs Vietnam and a major contributor to the fall of the country, and the USSR was much bigger than Russia. And it's ever worse when you look at the casualties among senior officers and combat pilots.
> Are there any reliable information sources covering how the war is actually going?
Plenty, yes. FT, Reuters, Guardian, etc.
Fast is pretty relative. Considering the fact we've been hearing about fighting in Severodonetsk for what, a week, at least, now? Russia's advance is dangerous, brutal, but very narrow and slow compared to the initial "blitzkrieg" they tried to pull of. But not WWI ten meters a day slow.
> On any given day you can read both that Russia is struggling and that Ukraine is ceding territory fast.
That's true on different fronts. Recently Ukraine lost territory in Donetsk & Lugansk while recovering territory at Kharkiv and Kherson.
Russia concentrated forces at Donetsk & Lugansk, it's their biggest offensive. Ukraine concentrated forces at Kherson, it's their offensive.
In other words both sides are trading territory with no clear winner while losing a ton of men and equipment where Russia is apparently losing a lot more. Giving this it's said that Russian campaign is unsustainable on the long term but Ukrainians are also under equiped and depend on donations & leases.
> Are there any reliable information sources covering how the war is actually going?
Pretty much none. Everything is too opinionated and post-truth-ish, best strategy would be to diversify sources pushing different angles, and then cross-reference.
Nuclear weapons of their ancestors, which since then require a lot of money and maintenance to remain nuclear weapons.
To put it another way, around 8 years ago the U.S. found its own nuclear arsenal had deteriorated due to the usual organization reasons, to the point that only a singular wrench existed for servicing the MinuteMan warhead and thus had to be constantly FedEx-ed between bases like a stupid game of hot potato[1]. In response, the U.S. is undertaken one of the largest overhaul of it's arsenal ever, that's planned to take place over the next 30 years. The first decade of this program is estimated to have cost $348 billion dollars and will ultimately come out to around trillion once all is said and done[2].
The current entire military budget of Russia is $65 billion. A budget they have masterfully used to buy cheap Chinese tires, moldy MREs, cardboard ERA, and funny tank cages. Despite this, they claim to maintain an aresenal of 4500 warheads, or around 700 more than the global hyperpower that ran out of wrenches.
Nuclear weapons are just the fastest way they can destroy the world.
They also have a huge amount of oil and natural gas and coal.
They also have plenty of brilliant people who are happy to work on a variety of projects where the outcome maybe a rapidly spreading drop tables computer virus or possibly even a rapidly spreading virus virus, certainly they've got a variety of boutique poisons for all occasions.
Having fewer resources than everyone else isn't a serious constraint if you're not constrained morally or legally, and vlad the underware poisoner isn't constrained by anything except possibly father time.
The historical portion of this article is misleading and relies on Western people’s lack knowledge of the region. It makes you think that Sweden then was Sweden today, a neutral peaceful country. In reality, Sweden had spent the previous century invading and destroying Central and Eastern Europe. It was so destructive that some historians estimate the damage in Poland exceeded that of World War 2.
> From the outset, Sweden had gone into the negotiations with very high ambitions and hopes of fulfilling the old dream of making all Russian trade pass through Swedish territory. As a consequence of that ambition, the Swedes originally demanded far-reaching territorial gains into western Russia, including the important northern port of Arkhangelsk.[3]
> However, King James I of England sent a delegation to mediate, and the United Provinces did the same, mostly to ensure that Arkhangelsk did not fall into Swedish hands, which would have made the extensive trade between Western Europe and Russia far more difficult.
The whole region was chaotic for centuries. Poland invaded Russia at one point as well. Everyone pretty much invaded everyone else.
Certainly no one was “justified” here, I just meant to point out that the article is written to be misleading. The region in question (St. Petersburg) does indeed seem to have been occupied by Russians for a considerable period of time prior to Sweden occupying it.
Guys he will totally be satisfied with just cleaving off Donbass and maybe a slice of the south. Gotta give him something, can't humiliate the poor fuhrer.
In the first few days of the war, and the utter collapse of the border, it wasn't clear that Ukraine might actually hold on. Or that Russia was a paper tiger. Or that sanctions against it would happen by the weekend, and be as comprehensive as they were.
> Obama actually said back in 2014 he didn't give weapons to Ukraine because it would lead them to a useless attrition war that they would lose anyway.
Ukraine had much smaller, and less well trained, armed forces in 2014 to use any weapons that would have been sent; much of the US aid from 2014 on was directed at dealing with capacity building and training, as well as providing basic nonlethal gear like helmets and body armor and a whole bunch of core logistical equipment. Weapons are necessary, but not sufficient, for an effective military.
Its not useless if russia is made weak by this. In contrary, big service to whole western world and some more for decades to come, paid in ukrainian (and poor uneducated simple russian conscripts) blood.
I think west as whole should really focus now on trying its best to make sure russians can't do high tech anymore, military or not. Can't stop such country making dumb ammo and cannons but nothing fancy.
> Obama actually said back in 2014 he didn't give weapons to Ukraine because it would lead them to a useless attrition war that they would lose anyway
Kyiv recapitulating Kabul was basically every Western analyst's assessment until at least several days into the war. If Russia had executed a lightning strike there would have been little war and, likely, few long-term consequences.
Obama may be proven right, but I certainly hope he is proven wrong, or at least that this phase of the war by Russia will prove that he might have been wrong.
But it's also important to know that Ukraine's army today is far different than that of 2014. In 2014, Ukraine's army was far more like Russia's in training and leadership, except it also had many pro-Putin leaders that have now been purged from leadership. There has also been a big change in style of leadership, as has been shown throughout this phase of the war.
Try to read something you know very well in the media and understand that there is no reason for other parts that you know less to be more correct (even if you believe naively that there is no propaganda).
Yes I am familiar, and also aware of propaganda as a concept. Having lived in Ukraine, that’s a part of the world that I understand. What’s the implication you’re making here? I’m not really following what conclusion you’re expecting me to reach.
This is very condescending, but I'm not even sure what you mean. Read more widely, because you believe this person has swallowed propaganda? Because OP pointed out the failed predictions of some people with poor understanding of word politics?
Yeah, I liked it. Seems like oil/gas reserves is what makes this war viable. Ukraine would be 3rd biggest gas producer in EU and probably advance fast and show Russian people how rich they could’ve it with different regime (like Norway).
Good summary video! I think his TLDW (at around min ~13:50) is about the same as the general opinion regarding that conflict:
- Russia feeling threatened by NATO expansion
- Ukraine having plenty of natural ressources
- Building the infrastructure to harvest the natural ressources by western companies would mean closer ties to the west and accelerated EU / NATO membership talks and also less dependence of the west on Russias energy (or a direct competition)
It's actually not about territory expansion. You're missing the point: land grab is a means to an end. Look at the Russia on the map: does it really lack space to build, needs more land? It's one of the lowest population densities in the world.
The true goal was to distract the attention of regular Russians from his failures inside the country, from the looting by him and other KGB cronies, make sure he stays in power, gets elected again. Or alternatively, no one would challenge the local status quo, all the oligarchs keep their wealth, continue sucking on mother's Russia titty while 99% of population is poor as fck. Why the hell each Russian soldier would then try to loot a washing machine, a TV set or a toilet and bring that back some 1000+ kilometres into the depth of Russia?! Because they are already piss poor, and then don't know it. And in their wildest dreams none of them would ever believe that it's Putin and his cronies that have put them in this missery. Putin is a fcking thief, a dictator whom TV-zombied avera Russian adores.
Yeah, but even these dictator types need to keep people distracted, to prevent discontent, unrest and dangerous ideas of revolution from brewing in the population. Dictators sometimes do get removed.
War is always a risk. No matter how over optimistic he was it's too big of a risk for a small poll bounce. This is about revanchist nationalistism/securing legacy/rebuilding the empire
Hitler already recognized that Ukraine is a) strategically very important due to its location, ie Black sea, gateweay to balkan and rest of Europe and b) has super fertile 'cernozem' (black earth would be direct translation). Plus quite a bit of industry, mostly post-soviet (well that one may be destroyed now).
Already soviets did this with warsaw-pact countries (poland, czechoslovakia, hungary) - shield against western europe, a battlefield where WWII was supposed to be fought. Invaded these countries that are not even close to russia and kept their iron hand above (and large military bases).
Seems like saber rattling. With Sweden and Finland on the path to join NATO, where would Russia even expand? And with their military bogged down in Ukraine, how would they even expand?
> With Sweden and Finland on the path to join NATO, where would Russia even expand?
It clearly intends to connect at least enclaves in Moldova to the swath of southern Ukraine it seeks to take (having likely abandoned any near term prospect of displacing the Ukrainian regime generally), probably also at least parts of Georgia.
It may also seek to bring other CSTO members into the Russia/Belarus “Union State” and make that Union State into a tighter confederation. (And possibly not just by diplomacy; invasion of insufficiently cooperative clients is something that the USSR—hardly uniquely among major powers—did quite a lot of, and a Russian leader who openly sees the USSR as a prior incarnation of Russia whose empire was squandered and improperly dismantled might well turn to the same tactics to restore it.)
Beyond that, unless it can somehow neutralize NATO or is willing to go directly to war with it, Russia seems pretty constrained.
Expand to Georgia, Moldova? I'd be nervous if I lived in a bordering country.
Exhausting Russia in Ukraine is perhaps the best rationale to maintain and increase arms shipments and training.
Of course how utterly tragic and infuriating to be Ukrainian and have your country destroyed and used as the battleground to keep Putin at bay (for the rest of the world).
Poland. Majority of Russians respond that way when asked where to go next. It like a fetish of the today's Russian Nazism.
Strategically speaking, Moldova and Baltic states, which Russia wants very much too, automatically become an easy prey in such a scenario. Russia really hates and very afraid of Intermarrium or anything resembling it. And Putin promised Lukashenko Baltic ports. Basically Russia is trying to make 4th partition of Poland and it starts to look like West Europe, though fortunately not US, start to give a bit of consideration to it.
Most probably Poland will get baited into the fight outside article 5 when Russia starts butchering deep inside Central and West Ukraine.
And Poland knows it. They've been furiously strong in their support of Ukraine, from huge gifts of soviet arms that Ukrainians can immediately use, to the humanitarian aid of literally opening their borders, no visa needed, to millions of Ukrainians trying to stay alive.
Poland loves the opportunity to bloody Russia, but they also love not being the ones to be bleeding for their sovereignty.
The rest of the world, at least the ones that stand to gain by weakening Russia, should absolutely follow in their footsteps.
Some idiots in the US have been crying that we've sent 1/3rd of our Stinger stocks to Ukraine, as if 1) the stinger is a desirable anti-aircraft platform and should be pushed as a mainstay of American defense, instead of an oldish system that could use a serious upgrade if we wanted it to be useful in a peer conflict, and 2) America actually relied on stingers at all, and didn't have the two largest air forces, designed specifically to murder peer adversary air forces.
Remember, as an American, your safety comes mostly from everyone being very far away. We could sent Ukraine our entire air force, and even though they wouldn't know how to use it, America would still have the largest air force in the world in our Navy! Anyone bitching about depleting our own defensive capability helping Ukraine is not arguing in good faith
The Ukrainians don't just tip the weapons in the bin you know, they use it to destroy Russian equipment. Whether the rest of Europe actually fires the the weapons itself or if we let Ukrainians do it does not matter for the end result: Russia will not have enough equipment left to push further into Europe.
Also it's not like Europe sent so much there is nothing left. It's mostly stockpiles of older kit that was in reserve.
Those weapons were designed, built and bought to destroy Russian equipment, and they are being used to destroy Russian equipment. The more they kill in Ukraine, the less they have to kill in the rest of Europe.
It is not like they sent the weapons to the void, those are used to slowdown or stop the invasion, worst case it buys time before next country gets invaded.
Plus Putin is not that insane to attack EU, his plan was revealed by an idiot that it is to go in Moldova next, then probably the other neighbors that are not in NATO yet.
Readit News
I'm a fluent Russian speaker and sometimes I watch a few Russian nightly "talk-shows", start to finish, to get a feel for how Putin's propaganda machine is changing over time. Well, since February, it's been in such overdrive, pumping Russians full of vicious hatred of all things "Western" and delusions of grandeur, that I honestly think it's possible for the regime to lose control. They are convincing the riff-raff that they're about to take on NATO and win. Maybe they don't have intentions of starting WW3, but what if Putin is offed or dies suddenly and the populace, driven to such jingoist frenzy that it lost all sense of reality and actually believes they can take on NATO and win, puts an even more evil and reckless "rebuilder of empire" on the throne? Even authoritarian dictatorships are affected by the mood of the mob.
Doesn't seem to be stopping them. The problem with crazy is it will do things not in its self interest.
On any given day you can read both that Russia is struggling and that Ukraine is ceding territory fast.
Those aren't incompatible situations in this kind of war. Russia is advancing fairly quickly (though not without significant reverses) since focusing on taking a strip of southern territory rather than decapitating and forcing the surrender of the Ukrainian regime.
There are also still taking insanely high casualties and material losses that cannot be replenished on any reasonable timescale (Ukraine is taking high casualties, proportionately more than Russia, but also defending their homes; this matters in terms of casualties that can be taken without collapsing the populations will to fight; and Ukraine is getting a flood of material from outside supporters.)
While there's wide variance in estimates, Russia's casualties in its four month war look to be at least in the neighborhood of those the Soviet Union took in its decade long war in Afghanistan, which was widely seen as the USSRs Vietnam and a major contributor to the fall of the country, and the USSR was much bigger than Russia. And it's ever worse when you look at the casualties among senior officers and combat pilots.
Plenty, yes. FT, Reuters, Guardian, etc.
Fast is pretty relative. Considering the fact we've been hearing about fighting in Severodonetsk for what, a week, at least, now? Russia's advance is dangerous, brutal, but very narrow and slow compared to the initial "blitzkrieg" they tried to pull of. But not WWI ten meters a day slow.
That's true on different fronts. Recently Ukraine lost territory in Donetsk & Lugansk while recovering territory at Kharkiv and Kherson.
Russia concentrated forces at Donetsk & Lugansk, it's their biggest offensive. Ukraine concentrated forces at Kherson, it's their offensive.
In other words both sides are trading territory with no clear winner while losing a ton of men and equipment where Russia is apparently losing a lot more. Giving this it's said that Russian campaign is unsustainable on the long term but Ukrainians are also under equiped and depend on donations & leases.
https://www.understandingwar.org/
Pretty much none. Everything is too opinionated and post-truth-ish, best strategy would be to diversify sources pushing different angles, and then cross-reference.
https://www.understandingwar.org/
https://www.defconlevel.com/
https://defconwarningsystem.com/
To put it another way, around 8 years ago the U.S. found its own nuclear arsenal had deteriorated due to the usual organization reasons, to the point that only a singular wrench existed for servicing the MinuteMan warhead and thus had to be constantly FedEx-ed between bases like a stupid game of hot potato[1]. In response, the U.S. is undertaken one of the largest overhaul of it's arsenal ever, that's planned to take place over the next 30 years. The first decade of this program is estimated to have cost $348 billion dollars and will ultimately come out to around trillion once all is said and done[2].
The current entire military budget of Russia is $65 billion. A budget they have masterfully used to buy cheap Chinese tires, moldy MREs, cardboard ERA, and funny tank cages. Despite this, they claim to maintain an aresenal of 4500 warheads, or around 700 more than the global hyperpower that ran out of wrenches.
[1]https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/us-wrench-nuclear-bases/stor...
[2]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renovation_of_the_nuclear_we...
They also have a huge amount of oil and natural gas and coal.
They also have plenty of brilliant people who are happy to work on a variety of projects where the outcome maybe a rapidly spreading drop tables computer virus or possibly even a rapidly spreading virus virus, certainly they've got a variety of boutique poisons for all occasions.
Having fewer resources than everyone else isn't a serious constraint if you're not constrained morally or legally, and vlad the underware poisoner isn't constrained by anything except possibly father time.
Dead Comment
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deluge_(history)
Peter the Great indeed did “take back” the land from Sweden, which Sweden had conquered from Russia about a century beforehand.
Nyenschantz was built in 1611 to establish Swedish rule in Ingria, which had been annexed from the Tsardom of Russia during the Time of Troubles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyenschantz
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Stolbovo
> From the outset, Sweden had gone into the negotiations with very high ambitions and hopes of fulfilling the old dream of making all Russian trade pass through Swedish territory. As a consequence of that ambition, the Swedes originally demanded far-reaching territorial gains into western Russia, including the important northern port of Arkhangelsk.[3]
> However, King James I of England sent a delegation to mediate, and the United Provinces did the same, mostly to ensure that Arkhangelsk did not fall into Swedish hands, which would have made the extensive trade between Western Europe and Russia far more difficult.
Alongside Russia [1]. Also, all this happened in the 17th century. When Russia was still finishing its conquest of Siberia [2].
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Polish_War_(1654–1667)
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_conquest_of_Siberia#17...
Certainly no one was “justified” here, I just meant to point out that the article is written to be misleading. The region in question (St. Petersburg) does indeed seem to have been occupied by Russians for a considerable period of time prior to Sweden occupying it.
I’ll steal that.
Ukraine had much smaller, and less well trained, armed forces in 2014 to use any weapons that would have been sent; much of the US aid from 2014 on was directed at dealing with capacity building and training, as well as providing basic nonlethal gear like helmets and body armor and a whole bunch of core logistical equipment. Weapons are necessary, but not sufficient, for an effective military.
I think west as whole should really focus now on trying its best to make sure russians can't do high tech anymore, military or not. Can't stop such country making dumb ammo and cannons but nothing fancy.
Kyiv recapitulating Kabul was basically every Western analyst's assessment until at least several days into the war. If Russia had executed a lightning strike there would have been little war and, likely, few long-term consequences.
But it's also important to know that Ukraine's army today is far different than that of 2014. In 2014, Ukraine's army was far more like Russia's in training and leadership, except it also had many pro-Putin leaders that have now been purged from leadership. There has also been a big change in style of leadership, as has been shown throughout this phase of the war.
In 2014, there was an argument for doing more:
https://www.armytimes.com/opinion/2014/11/28/opinion-a-case-...
They’re all appalling but really effective. They’ve been trained well.
Try to read something you know very well in the media and understand that there is no reason for other parts that you know less to be more correct (even if you believe naively that there is no propaganda).
- Russia feeling threatened by NATO expansion
- Ukraine having plenty of natural ressources
- Building the infrastructure to harvest the natural ressources by western companies would mean closer ties to the west and accelerated EU / NATO membership talks and also less dependence of the west on Russias energy (or a direct competition)
The true goal was to distract the attention of regular Russians from his failures inside the country, from the looting by him and other KGB cronies, make sure he stays in power, gets elected again. Or alternatively, no one would challenge the local status quo, all the oligarchs keep their wealth, continue sucking on mother's Russia titty while 99% of population is poor as fck. Why the hell each Russian soldier would then try to loot a washing machine, a TV set or a toilet and bring that back some 1000+ kilometres into the depth of Russia?! Because they are already piss poor, and then don't know it. And in their wildest dreams none of them would ever believe that it's Putin and his cronies that have put them in this missery. Putin is a fcking thief, a dictator whom TV-zombied avera Russian adores.
Already soviets did this with warsaw-pact countries (poland, czechoslovakia, hungary) - shield against western europe, a battlefield where WWII was supposed to be fought. Invaded these countries that are not even close to russia and kept their iron hand above (and large military bases).
It clearly intends to connect at least enclaves in Moldova to the swath of southern Ukraine it seeks to take (having likely abandoned any near term prospect of displacing the Ukrainian regime generally), probably also at least parts of Georgia.
It may also seek to bring other CSTO members into the Russia/Belarus “Union State” and make that Union State into a tighter confederation. (And possibly not just by diplomacy; invasion of insufficiently cooperative clients is something that the USSR—hardly uniquely among major powers—did quite a lot of, and a Russian leader who openly sees the USSR as a prior incarnation of Russia whose empire was squandered and improperly dismantled might well turn to the same tactics to restore it.)
Beyond that, unless it can somehow neutralize NATO or is willing to go directly to war with it, Russia seems pretty constrained.
(Regarding how, I have no useful input. )
They _are_ nervous. Serbia might start acting Serbian again too
End This War - not Endless War
where did I see that?
Strategically speaking, Moldova and Baltic states, which Russia wants very much too, automatically become an easy prey in such a scenario. Russia really hates and very afraid of Intermarrium or anything resembling it. And Putin promised Lukashenko Baltic ports. Basically Russia is trying to make 4th partition of Poland and it starts to look like West Europe, though fortunately not US, start to give a bit of consideration to it.
Most probably Poland will get baited into the fight outside article 5 when Russia starts butchering deep inside Central and West Ukraine.
Poland loves the opportunity to bloody Russia, but they also love not being the ones to be bleeding for their sovereignty.
The rest of the world, at least the ones that stand to gain by weakening Russia, should absolutely follow in their footsteps.
Some idiots in the US have been crying that we've sent 1/3rd of our Stinger stocks to Ukraine, as if 1) the stinger is a desirable anti-aircraft platform and should be pushed as a mainstay of American defense, instead of an oldish system that could use a serious upgrade if we wanted it to be useful in a peer conflict, and 2) America actually relied on stingers at all, and didn't have the two largest air forces, designed specifically to murder peer adversary air forces.
Remember, as an American, your safety comes mostly from everyone being very far away. We could sent Ukraine our entire air force, and even though they wouldn't know how to use it, America would still have the largest air force in the world in our Navy! Anyone bitching about depleting our own defensive capability helping Ukraine is not arguing in good faith
Dead Comment
Also it's not like Europe sent so much there is nothing left. It's mostly stockpiles of older kit that was in reserve.
Plus Putin is not that insane to attack EU, his plan was revealed by an idiot that it is to go in Moldova next, then probably the other neighbors that are not in NATO yet.