War with Russia
Discussion
skyrover said:
I don't need ofcom to agree with me on my own opinion. Having had a quick read of only the first three paragraphs of your link it states "one complaint"..... I then didn't need to read anymore.
Octoposse said:
armongering s
te would be nearer the mark . . . only suprising thing missing was a plug in favour of TTIP which usually appears in these polemics . . .
It is a good article as it shows the thinking taking place with the Russian border nations. They have a genuine fear that Putin might try something daft, I do not think so, but then I am not 50 miles from the border. The rhetoric being ramped up in this manner has some useful side effects. The first benefits is it will expand NATO with new entrants very keen to join, the second is it isolates Russia further. te would be nearer the mark . . . only suprising thing missing was a plug in favour of TTIP which usually appears in these polemics . . .NATO was desperately looking for a reason to exist, post cold war, it has now found one, and expansion in on the cards, a win win with Russia cast in the role of threat to be confronted. (part real, part created, part hyped up).
It is entirely possible that punitive sanctions, non-payment of debt, believing the EU/USA promises and flexing of military muscle will not keep you warm in winter, time to negotiate has arrived for Ukraine.
A comment below the article did ring true.
The Russians have two outstanding generals (politicians), January and February.
Vladimir Putin is using winter as a weapon, says Ukraine prime minister
A comment below the article did ring true.
The Russians have two outstanding generals (politicians), January and February.
Vladimir Putin is using winter as a weapon, says Ukraine prime minister
An interesting article detailing hypothetically how this could result in the collapse of NATO.
forbes said:
Ukraine Is More of An Existential Threat Than ISIS, Because It Could Destroy NATO
It is rare for a head of state, especially one fighting a hot war against, using Mitt Romney’s phrase, “America’s number one geopolitical enemy,” to be invited to address a joint session of Congress. Ukraine’s president Petro Poroshenko delivered an urgent plea on Thursday for American military support against Russia’s invasion. The passionate speech elicited standing ovations from both sides of the aisle.
For the press, however, it was as if Petroshenko’s speech never took place despite his memorable jab at President Obama: “Blankets do not win wars.” The New York Times relegated Poroshenko to A12. No mention on the Drudge Report, and the Wall Street Journal placed its Ukraine Gets More Aid, No Weapons on A6 and derided Obama’s fear that “real weapons (for Ukraine) will provoke Vladimir Putin, as if he needs an excuse for invasion” on its editorial page. BTW: The Russian invasion of late August was conveniently dismissed in White-House speak as an “incursion.”
The slaughter of more than 3,000 civilians and Ukrainian soldiers and a growing toll of Russian mercenaries and conscripts in southeast Ukraine can hardly compete with ISIS’s (or ISIL’s, if you like) grisly You-Tube beheadings, but the potential risk posed by Russia’s War of Southeast Ukraine exceeds those emanating from the ISIS threat.
If you do not believe me, hear me out.
A retired general, a former ambassador, and an intelligence expert testified before the House shortly before Poroshenko’s speech about how to defeat the 30,000 strong (and growing) ISIS forces. We must keep our options open and not “tell our adversaries in advance any timeline … or which of our capabilities we will not employ.” Defeating ISIS will be a tough slog. ISIS’s recruitment of European and American sympathizers complicates the war on terror, which we must regrettably fight for decades to come, ISIS or no ISIS.
The same military experts would be hard pressed to explain how the hobbled Ukrainian army is to defeat the Russian-backed separatists and regular Russian troops without military assistance, especially now that Russia has shown it will invade with regular forces. Sanctions are indeed hurting, but they are a price Putin is willing to pay. If anything, Europe and the United States seem to be rooting for Ukraine’s military weakness. Angela Merkel rejected military aid lest Ukraine believe a military solution is possible. Barack Obama expressed fear that military aid might involve the U.S. more deeply in the conflict. Neither Merkel nor Obama seem to understand that you gain a good peace by winning not by losing.
Whereas Poroshenko’s “blankets do not win wars” line gained the most attention, his chilling parallel with the Cuban Missile Crisis largely escaped notice:
“Without any doubt, the international system of checks and balances has been effectively ruined (by Russia’s actions). The world has been plunged into the worst security crisis since the U.S. (Cuban missile) standoff of 1962.”
By this stark comparison, Poroshenko made clear that Vladimir Putin’s territorial ambitions, his clear intent to restore a Russian empire, and his hatred of NATO provide the tinderbox for reigniting events similar to October 1962 when U.S. and Soviet forces faced each other “eyeball-to-eyeball.” We could be weeks or months away from another such standoff with Russia, not in the Caribbean, but in a small state on the Baltic Sea.
Are the world’s two largest nuclear powers moving towards a missile-crisis-like confrontation because Russia is achieving or failing to achieve its objectives in Southeast Ukraine? Are Europe and the U.S. really hoping that a peace deal entered into by a weakened Ukraine will end Putin’s empire-restoration dream? Or would only effective Ukrainian resistance that denies Putin his Novorossiya head off such a catastrophe? Merkel and Obama regrettably seem to be pushing Ukraine towards an unfavorable peace that gives Putin a permanently destabilized Ukraine blocked from the European Union and NATO. And the only price he has had to pay is sanctions, which he expects to be lifted after a decent time has passed.
Noted Russian commentator and Putin critic, Andrei Piontovsky, argues that if “Putin succeeds and completely subordinates to himself the policy of Ukraine and blocks its European choice, then he will continue this campaign. And the next target will be the Baltics.” (See Paul Goble’s summary). If he loses in Ukraine, he cannot move to his next target and his regime may be threatened. We are not talking small ball here.
At this juncture, it appears that Putin’s late August invasion ended Ukraine’s successful Anti-Terrorist Operation and devastated Ukraine’s forces in the southeast. Ukraine’s army and national guard have pulled back, hoping to regroup. Putin is close to his objective of an autonomous southeast Ukraine through which he can manipulate the whole of Ukraine, and he has yet to pay what he regards as a real price.
As far as Putin is concerned, the game is almost over. Let’s get ready for the next game.
Piontovsky argues that NATO membership of the Baltic States will not hold Putin back. Rather, it will spur him on. Ukraine-like hybrid wars against Estonia, Latvia, or Lithuania, “would call the (NATO) alliance as a whole into question and give Putin an enormous victory.” Putin sees the grand prize in reach: the de facto destruction of his greatest enemy, NATO – the very organization that destroyed the USSR and encircled Russia. The risks of such an adventure would be high, but the rewards would be astronomical.
But wait, skeptics argue: Surely Putin understands that an attack on any Baltic state would trigger the Article 5 mutual defense clause of NATO. Did not the President of the United States pledge in Tallinn on September 3 that “Article Five is crystal clear? An attack on one is an attack on all… So if, in such a moment, you ever ask again, who will come to help, you’ll know the answer: the NATO alliance, including the armed forces of the United States of America, right here, present, now.”
Putin would not dare, such skeptics say. Obama has laid down a red line, and this time he means it.
Not so fast! We thought Putin would not dare to invade and annex Crimea and over turn the postwar order, but he did. We thought he would not use regular troops in Southeastern Ukraine but he did. And in all cases, he got away with it largely unscathed. Putin would respond with: I have been there and done that in Ukraine. I can get away with it in the Baltics. I know how to do it. There is truth to what he says. Russia has six years of experience with fighting hybrid wars, none of which have failed. One was against Georgia, a member of NATO’s Partnership For Peace. Putin annexed parts of Georgia and NATO did little or nothing.
As writes Thomas Lifson in American Thinker: “We are in very dangerous territory now. Russia will be encouraged to escalate its provocations, having seen that Obama’s threats are empty. Putin has already mentioned that Russia is a nuclear power, a not so veiled threat to start World War 3 should his future aggression meet a response. The risk is that having shown he can be bullied, Obama will respond too late …. thereby setting off Armageddon.”
We can already describe Putin’s game plan for destroying NATO via the new type of war he perfected in Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine. It could begin in any of the three Baltic states. Russia has already launched a provocation in Estonia, but this is likely a diversion. Latvia, a country of two million, one quarter Russian, 150,000 of which are not Latvian citizens, is the likely first target.
The first step of Russia’s hybrid war has purportedly already been taken in the form of secret surveys of Latvia’s ethnic Russians. Putin’s propaganda arm, RT, is already hammering Latvia’s discrimination against its Russians. As preparations against Latvia accelerate, RT and Russian TV channels, which are the main source of information for most of Latvia’s Russians, will increasingly feature lurid tales of murder, torture and rape of Latvian Russians by nationalists and neo-Nazis supported by Latvia’s “criminal” state. Agents of Russian military intelligence (GRU) and FSB (the KGB successor) will infiltrate Latvia along with mercenaries, armed with money and lists of likely sympathizers. Riots will be organized in smaller eastern cities with high proportions of Russians. The protester/occupiers will sport signs demanding equal rights and autonomous status. Armed crowds will overwhelm local police and will occupy municipal buildings. The occupiers will then proclaim a Peoples’ Republic of Free Latvia. They will surround their occupied buildings with barbed wire, burning tires, and AK47 toting thugs.
As this is going on, the Russian army will begin “long scheduled” maneuvers on the Latvian border. The Kremlin may admit that Russian “volunteers” have crossed the border, but the Russian people are free to help their Russian brothers abroad, and the Kremlin has nothing to do with this. Russia only wants peace on its borders. The Latvian government will deliver outraged protests to the Kremlin which will claim its innocence, while its troops make feints at the border.
Joint Latvian, Lithuanian, and Estonian forces will make their way to remove the new self-declared “mayors” and “governors” from the occupied buildings and towns. Shooting breaks out between Baltic forces and the self-proclaimed n Peoples Republic of Free Latvia. Casualties mount. Latvia declares that it has been attacked by Russia and invokes NATO’s Article 5. Russia counters by protesting its innocence and concern that a civil war has broken out on its borders. It could be compelled, however, to intervene if fellow Russians are at risk, and Russia will take no weapons off the table.
Russia and the United States again stand eyeball-to-eyeball. We do not know, to use Dean Rusk’s term, which side will blink. What will NATO and the United States do at this moment? The answer is far from clear.
Airwaves, the press, and the blogosphere will already have been saturated with dire warnings of World War III. Putin is already on record that he can win a war with NATO through the use of tactical nuclear weapons. Putin apologists in Germany, France, Italy and the United States will ask: Are we really prepared to die for Latvia or Estonia? At this point, Putin will volunteer himself as a peace maker. Surely he can work something out. The Latvian commotion is nothing more than a Scotland referendum gone bad. Why should we turn the world upside down just because of a civil war in a small insignificant country that few can locate on the map.
At an emergency NATO meeting in Brussels, the Baltic States make their plea for Article 5. After a considerable tug of war, NATO decides to wait and see. Perhaps everything will turn out just fine. More mercenaries and equipment cross the border to defend the Peoples Republic of Free Latvia. Latvia sinks into a frozen conflict, whose end is not in sight. Russian troops remain poised on the border.
Putin has called NATO’s bluff, and the world has seen that NATO is an empty shell. There is no more NATO. Putin is king of the roost. It is he who decides who will be spared and who will punished.
ISIS and Putin teach the same lesson. If the West wants to win, it must resist before it is too late. ISIS would have been easy to defeat when it was a ragtag force of several thousand. Putin would have been easy to stop if the West had moved in destroyers, carriers, and NATO troops to Poland or Kiev at the first move to annex Crimea. Putin’s unconventional attack on southeast Ukraine could have been halted by massive sanctions before misdeeds (not after), by brushing aside Russia’s protestations of innocence with straight talk, and by providing Ukraine with real military assistance from the get-go. It is already too late to do what we should have done, but consider the scenario that I have described above. Very soon, it could really be too late.
Ukraine is fighting on its own with little or no help from its feckless allies. Those who stand next in the line of victims understand the urgency of the situation. Others do not, if Obama’s remark at a recent fund raiser is accurate: “Geopolitically…what happens in Ukraine does not pose a threat to us.” That remark may go down in history along with Chamberlain’s “peace in our time” statement.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/20...It is rare for a head of state, especially one fighting a hot war against, using Mitt Romney’s phrase, “America’s number one geopolitical enemy,” to be invited to address a joint session of Congress. Ukraine’s president Petro Poroshenko delivered an urgent plea on Thursday for American military support against Russia’s invasion. The passionate speech elicited standing ovations from both sides of the aisle.
For the press, however, it was as if Petroshenko’s speech never took place despite his memorable jab at President Obama: “Blankets do not win wars.” The New York Times relegated Poroshenko to A12. No mention on the Drudge Report, and the Wall Street Journal placed its Ukraine Gets More Aid, No Weapons on A6 and derided Obama’s fear that “real weapons (for Ukraine) will provoke Vladimir Putin, as if he needs an excuse for invasion” on its editorial page. BTW: The Russian invasion of late August was conveniently dismissed in White-House speak as an “incursion.”
The slaughter of more than 3,000 civilians and Ukrainian soldiers and a growing toll of Russian mercenaries and conscripts in southeast Ukraine can hardly compete with ISIS’s (or ISIL’s, if you like) grisly You-Tube beheadings, but the potential risk posed by Russia’s War of Southeast Ukraine exceeds those emanating from the ISIS threat.
If you do not believe me, hear me out.
A retired general, a former ambassador, and an intelligence expert testified before the House shortly before Poroshenko’s speech about how to defeat the 30,000 strong (and growing) ISIS forces. We must keep our options open and not “tell our adversaries in advance any timeline … or which of our capabilities we will not employ.” Defeating ISIS will be a tough slog. ISIS’s recruitment of European and American sympathizers complicates the war on terror, which we must regrettably fight for decades to come, ISIS or no ISIS.
The same military experts would be hard pressed to explain how the hobbled Ukrainian army is to defeat the Russian-backed separatists and regular Russian troops without military assistance, especially now that Russia has shown it will invade with regular forces. Sanctions are indeed hurting, but they are a price Putin is willing to pay. If anything, Europe and the United States seem to be rooting for Ukraine’s military weakness. Angela Merkel rejected military aid lest Ukraine believe a military solution is possible. Barack Obama expressed fear that military aid might involve the U.S. more deeply in the conflict. Neither Merkel nor Obama seem to understand that you gain a good peace by winning not by losing.
Whereas Poroshenko’s “blankets do not win wars” line gained the most attention, his chilling parallel with the Cuban Missile Crisis largely escaped notice:
“Without any doubt, the international system of checks and balances has been effectively ruined (by Russia’s actions). The world has been plunged into the worst security crisis since the U.S. (Cuban missile) standoff of 1962.”
By this stark comparison, Poroshenko made clear that Vladimir Putin’s territorial ambitions, his clear intent to restore a Russian empire, and his hatred of NATO provide the tinderbox for reigniting events similar to October 1962 when U.S. and Soviet forces faced each other “eyeball-to-eyeball.” We could be weeks or months away from another such standoff with Russia, not in the Caribbean, but in a small state on the Baltic Sea.
Are the world’s two largest nuclear powers moving towards a missile-crisis-like confrontation because Russia is achieving or failing to achieve its objectives in Southeast Ukraine? Are Europe and the U.S. really hoping that a peace deal entered into by a weakened Ukraine will end Putin’s empire-restoration dream? Or would only effective Ukrainian resistance that denies Putin his Novorossiya head off such a catastrophe? Merkel and Obama regrettably seem to be pushing Ukraine towards an unfavorable peace that gives Putin a permanently destabilized Ukraine blocked from the European Union and NATO. And the only price he has had to pay is sanctions, which he expects to be lifted after a decent time has passed.
Noted Russian commentator and Putin critic, Andrei Piontovsky, argues that if “Putin succeeds and completely subordinates to himself the policy of Ukraine and blocks its European choice, then he will continue this campaign. And the next target will be the Baltics.” (See Paul Goble’s summary). If he loses in Ukraine, he cannot move to his next target and his regime may be threatened. We are not talking small ball here.
At this juncture, it appears that Putin’s late August invasion ended Ukraine’s successful Anti-Terrorist Operation and devastated Ukraine’s forces in the southeast. Ukraine’s army and national guard have pulled back, hoping to regroup. Putin is close to his objective of an autonomous southeast Ukraine through which he can manipulate the whole of Ukraine, and he has yet to pay what he regards as a real price.
As far as Putin is concerned, the game is almost over. Let’s get ready for the next game.
Piontovsky argues that NATO membership of the Baltic States will not hold Putin back. Rather, it will spur him on. Ukraine-like hybrid wars against Estonia, Latvia, or Lithuania, “would call the (NATO) alliance as a whole into question and give Putin an enormous victory.” Putin sees the grand prize in reach: the de facto destruction of his greatest enemy, NATO – the very organization that destroyed the USSR and encircled Russia. The risks of such an adventure would be high, but the rewards would be astronomical.
But wait, skeptics argue: Surely Putin understands that an attack on any Baltic state would trigger the Article 5 mutual defense clause of NATO. Did not the President of the United States pledge in Tallinn on September 3 that “Article Five is crystal clear? An attack on one is an attack on all… So if, in such a moment, you ever ask again, who will come to help, you’ll know the answer: the NATO alliance, including the armed forces of the United States of America, right here, present, now.”
Putin would not dare, such skeptics say. Obama has laid down a red line, and this time he means it.
Not so fast! We thought Putin would not dare to invade and annex Crimea and over turn the postwar order, but he did. We thought he would not use regular troops in Southeastern Ukraine but he did. And in all cases, he got away with it largely unscathed. Putin would respond with: I have been there and done that in Ukraine. I can get away with it in the Baltics. I know how to do it. There is truth to what he says. Russia has six years of experience with fighting hybrid wars, none of which have failed. One was against Georgia, a member of NATO’s Partnership For Peace. Putin annexed parts of Georgia and NATO did little or nothing.
As writes Thomas Lifson in American Thinker: “We are in very dangerous territory now. Russia will be encouraged to escalate its provocations, having seen that Obama’s threats are empty. Putin has already mentioned that Russia is a nuclear power, a not so veiled threat to start World War 3 should his future aggression meet a response. The risk is that having shown he can be bullied, Obama will respond too late …. thereby setting off Armageddon.”
We can already describe Putin’s game plan for destroying NATO via the new type of war he perfected in Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine. It could begin in any of the three Baltic states. Russia has already launched a provocation in Estonia, but this is likely a diversion. Latvia, a country of two million, one quarter Russian, 150,000 of which are not Latvian citizens, is the likely first target.
The first step of Russia’s hybrid war has purportedly already been taken in the form of secret surveys of Latvia’s ethnic Russians. Putin’s propaganda arm, RT, is already hammering Latvia’s discrimination against its Russians. As preparations against Latvia accelerate, RT and Russian TV channels, which are the main source of information for most of Latvia’s Russians, will increasingly feature lurid tales of murder, torture and rape of Latvian Russians by nationalists and neo-Nazis supported by Latvia’s “criminal” state. Agents of Russian military intelligence (GRU) and FSB (the KGB successor) will infiltrate Latvia along with mercenaries, armed with money and lists of likely sympathizers. Riots will be organized in smaller eastern cities with high proportions of Russians. The protester/occupiers will sport signs demanding equal rights and autonomous status. Armed crowds will overwhelm local police and will occupy municipal buildings. The occupiers will then proclaim a Peoples’ Republic of Free Latvia. They will surround their occupied buildings with barbed wire, burning tires, and AK47 toting thugs.
As this is going on, the Russian army will begin “long scheduled” maneuvers on the Latvian border. The Kremlin may admit that Russian “volunteers” have crossed the border, but the Russian people are free to help their Russian brothers abroad, and the Kremlin has nothing to do with this. Russia only wants peace on its borders. The Latvian government will deliver outraged protests to the Kremlin which will claim its innocence, while its troops make feints at the border.
Joint Latvian, Lithuanian, and Estonian forces will make their way to remove the new self-declared “mayors” and “governors” from the occupied buildings and towns. Shooting breaks out between Baltic forces and the self-proclaimed n Peoples Republic of Free Latvia. Casualties mount. Latvia declares that it has been attacked by Russia and invokes NATO’s Article 5. Russia counters by protesting its innocence and concern that a civil war has broken out on its borders. It could be compelled, however, to intervene if fellow Russians are at risk, and Russia will take no weapons off the table.
Russia and the United States again stand eyeball-to-eyeball. We do not know, to use Dean Rusk’s term, which side will blink. What will NATO and the United States do at this moment? The answer is far from clear.
Airwaves, the press, and the blogosphere will already have been saturated with dire warnings of World War III. Putin is already on record that he can win a war with NATO through the use of tactical nuclear weapons. Putin apologists in Germany, France, Italy and the United States will ask: Are we really prepared to die for Latvia or Estonia? At this point, Putin will volunteer himself as a peace maker. Surely he can work something out. The Latvian commotion is nothing more than a Scotland referendum gone bad. Why should we turn the world upside down just because of a civil war in a small insignificant country that few can locate on the map.
At an emergency NATO meeting in Brussels, the Baltic States make their plea for Article 5. After a considerable tug of war, NATO decides to wait and see. Perhaps everything will turn out just fine. More mercenaries and equipment cross the border to defend the Peoples Republic of Free Latvia. Latvia sinks into a frozen conflict, whose end is not in sight. Russian troops remain poised on the border.
Putin has called NATO’s bluff, and the world has seen that NATO is an empty shell. There is no more NATO. Putin is king of the roost. It is he who decides who will be spared and who will punished.
ISIS and Putin teach the same lesson. If the West wants to win, it must resist before it is too late. ISIS would have been easy to defeat when it was a ragtag force of several thousand. Putin would have been easy to stop if the West had moved in destroyers, carriers, and NATO troops to Poland or Kiev at the first move to annex Crimea. Putin’s unconventional attack on southeast Ukraine could have been halted by massive sanctions before misdeeds (not after), by brushing aside Russia’s protestations of innocence with straight talk, and by providing Ukraine with real military assistance from the get-go. It is already too late to do what we should have done, but consider the scenario that I have described above. Very soon, it could really be too late.
Ukraine is fighting on its own with little or no help from its feckless allies. Those who stand next in the line of victims understand the urgency of the situation. Others do not, if Obama’s remark at a recent fund raiser is accurate: “Geopolitically…what happens in Ukraine does not pose a threat to us.” That remark may go down in history along with Chamberlain’s “peace in our time” statement.
It's nice when something blows up in Vlad's face:
http://money.msn.com/top-stocks/post--russias-gamb...
http://money.msn.com/top-stocks/post--russias-gamb...
Jimbeaux said:
It's nice when something blows up in Vlad's face:
http://money.msn.com/top-stocks/post--russias-gamb...
so Putin's chicken Kiev just got more expensive ? http://money.msn.com/top-stocks/post--russias-gamb...
skyrover said:
An interesting article detailing hypothetically how this could result in the collapse of NATO.
I am not sure that forcing NATO and Russia into a confrontation is a good idea from a long term human survival point of view. The author seems quite intent on making those "pinko ex-commies" pay for the temerity to oppose an EU supported violent coup of an elected (but corrupt) government.forbes said:
ISIS and Putin teach the same lesson. If the West wants to win, it must resist before it is too late. ISIS would have been easy to defeat when it was a ragtag force of several thousand. Putin would have been easy to stop if the West had moved in destroyers, carriers, and NATO troops to Poland or Kiev at the first move to annex Crimea. Putin’s unconventional attack on southeast Ukraine could have been halted by massive sanctions before misdeeds (not after), by brushing aside Russia’s protestations of innocence with straight talk, and by providing Ukraine with real military assistance from the get-go. It is already too late to do what we should have done, but consider the scenario that I have described above. Very soon, it could really be too late.
Ukraine is fighting on its own with little or no help from its feckless allies. Those who stand next in the line of victims understand the urgency of the situation. Others do not, if Obama’s remark at a recent fund raiser is accurate: “Geopolitically…what happens in Ukraine does not pose a threat to us.” That remark may go down in history along with Chamberlain’s “peace in our time” statement.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulroderickgregory/20...Ukraine is fighting on its own with little or no help from its feckless allies. Those who stand next in the line of victims understand the urgency of the situation. Others do not, if Obama’s remark at a recent fund raiser is accurate: “Geopolitically…what happens in Ukraine does not pose a threat to us.” That remark may go down in history along with Chamberlain’s “peace in our time” statement.
Negotiate a federal solution to Eastern Ukraine, that is palatable to Kiev and the separatists and stop with the pantomime economic and military posturing. Economically everyone loses, and militarily the loss could escalate into something not worth considering. Poroshenko and Arseniy options are shrinking the closer it gets to winter.
Jimbeaux said:
It's nice when something blows up in Vlad's face:
http://money.msn.com/top-stocks/post--russias-gamb...
Chicken a la Botox. http://money.msn.com/top-stocks/post--russias-gamb...
QuantumTokoloshi said:
Jimbeaux said:
It's nice when something blows up in Vlad's face:
http://money.msn.com/top-stocks/post--russias-gamb...
so Putin's chicken Kiev just got more expensive ? http://money.msn.com/top-stocks/post--russias-gamb...
QuantumTokoloshi said:
It is entirely possible that punitive sanctions, non-payment of debt, believing the EU/USA promises and flexing of military muscle will not keep you warm in winter, time to negotiate has arrived for Ukraine.
A comment below the article did ring true.
The Russians have two outstanding generals (politicians), January and February.
Vladimir Putin is using winter as a weapon, says Ukraine prime minister
I find this one a bit odd; the crappy conditions that prevail in autumn and winter favour whoever has the shortest log chain; that's the Ukrainians in this case.A comment below the article did ring true.
The Russians have two outstanding generals (politicians), January and February.
Vladimir Putin is using winter as a weapon, says Ukraine prime minister
Mojocvh said:
Octoposse said:
Mojocvh said:
Octoposse said:
skyrover said:
Good article
Warmongering ste would be nearer the mark . . . only suprising thing missing was a plug in favour of TTIP which usually appears in these polemics . . .Really.
Plot lost totally there methinks.. Most likely outcome for all this is the following:
1. Putin will crank things up until the pips squeak. The Russian economy will be screwed.
2. I should get a job in the defence industry. A shed load of gear is going to be sold to NATO.
Far from being a master tactician, Putin is acting like a scared and paranoid man, out of touch with reality and surrounded with Yes men. Russia is going to get screwed. Give it a decade and we won't even want their gas anymore.
1. Putin will crank things up until the pips squeak. The Russian economy will be screwed.
2. I should get a job in the defence industry. A shed load of gear is going to be sold to NATO.
Far from being a master tactician, Putin is acting like a scared and paranoid man, out of touch with reality and surrounded with Yes men. Russia is going to get screwed. Give it a decade and we won't even want their gas anymore.
toppstuff said:
Most likely outcome for all this is the following:
1. Putin will crank things up until the pips squeak. The Russian economy will be screwed.
2. I should get a job in the defence industry. A shed load of gear is going to be sold to NATO.
Far from being a master tactician, Putin is acting like a scared and paranoid man, out of touch with reality and surrounded with Yes men. Russia is going to get screwed. Give it a decade and we won't even want their gas anymore.
At the moment, the EU and Ukraine need Russia more the Russia needs it. Compromise and a deal is the only sane solution, the USA can play as they like, as they will not feel much economic pain or winter chill.1. Putin will crank things up until the pips squeak. The Russian economy will be screwed.
2. I should get a job in the defence industry. A shed load of gear is going to be sold to NATO.
Far from being a master tactician, Putin is acting like a scared and paranoid man, out of touch with reality and surrounded with Yes men. Russia is going to get screwed. Give it a decade and we won't even want their gas anymore.
Russia is also reducing dependence on the EU for gas supply and income. The Russian economy is not in a healthy state but neither is the European economy, who will blink first? With winter arriving.
This kind of economic war has no winners.
Edited by QuantumTokoloshi on Friday 26th September 21:02
forbes said:
The slaughter of more than 3,000 civilians and Ukrainian soldiers and a growing toll of Russian mercenaries and conscripts in southeast Ukraine . . .
As usual ignoring the 'slaughter' of Russian speaking civilians in air raids (prior to the Russians denying command of the air to Kiev), artillery strikes, and killed my nationalist mobs. Even handed? forbes said:
. . .military experts would be hard pressed to explain how the hobbled Ukrainian army is to defeat the Russian-backed separatists and regular Russian troops without military assistance, especially now that Russia has shown it will invade with regular forces.
Well, they're not (arguably with or without military assistance). And even were it to be possible, the cost to Ukraine and Ukrainian civilians (whatever their affiliation) would be collosal. "We had to destroy the village in order to save it" as they used to say in 'nam . . Interesting then why it appears that we did indeed encourage Kiev to seek a military solution rather than a political one, from March/April onwards - a political solution that Moscow desparately wanted (albeit on a 'quit whilst you're ahead' rationale). 'Believe me, there will be a victory parade -- there will be for sure, in Ukraine's Sevastopol' as the Ukrainian Minister of Defence put it. Yep, about the same time that there's a victory parade in Mexico's Dallas.
Putin cannot afford to be seen to 'lose' in Ukraine. We can. How, therefore, is any game of chicken going to end?
forbes said:
. . .Vladimir Putin’s territorial ambitions, his clear intent to restore a Russian empire . . . .
There is absolutely no evidence for any such ambition except in a few specific places, such as Crimea and South Ossetia, where Moscow's opinion seems to coincide with the wishes of the people who actually live there. The idea that Russian Motor Rifle divisions (the very same that I spent much of the 1980s sitting in the then West Germany waiting for, MILAN poised) are suddenly going to start pouring westwards is absurd.The only tiny nugget of half truth buried in the article is:
forbes said:
If he loses in Ukraine, he cannot move to his next target and his regime may be threatened.
. Well, he's not going to lose (and the second half of the sentence explains why), but, OK, lets go along with the argument: he loses. His regime (regime? Oh, that's shorthand for an elected government we don't like?) is 'threatened'. Putin goes. Who do we think is going to replace him? Someone more cuddly? Given that the political imperative to Putin of not losing is as a result of the humiliation of Russia over Kosovo and other issues, the next leader in such circumstances would have to be more, er, bolshie, in thought, word, and deed, not less.forbes said:
We thought Putin would not dare to invade and annex Crimea and over turn the postwar order, but he did. We thought he would not use regular troops in Southeastern Ukraine but he did.
Who's 'we'. Putin's actions were inevitable, predictable, and predicted, from the moment we went for regime change in Kiev and pissed on Moscow's sensibilities in their backyard. Given that kind of ignorance, I can't see why the author believes the rest of the article makes compelling sense.forbes said:
Putin annexed parts of Georgia and NATO did little or nothing.
Mildly misleading, and the article doesn't appear to put much store by the principle of self-determination, but letting those points go, did the author look at a map and see where Georgia is? Love to know what the plan was for intervening . . forbes said:
Putin would have been easy to stop if the West had moved in destroyers, carriers, and NATO troops to Poland or Kiev at the first move to annex Crimea.
Well, no - the die was cast from the moment of regime change in Kiev. And was 'our' military force intended to prevent Crimea reunification with Russia irrespective of the wishes of the people who actually lived there? Not sure that US Admirals would have been happy operating a carrier battle group in the confines of the Black Sea either, but hey, ho, the author can't be talking out of his arse can he, not in Forbes . . . toppstuff said:
Most likely outcome for all this is the following:
1. Putin will crank things up until the pips squeak. The Russian economy will be screwed.
2. I should get a job in the defence industry. A shed load of gear is going to be sold to NATO.
Far from being a master tactician, Putin is acting like a scared and paranoid man, out of touch with reality and surrounded with Yes men. Russia is going to get screwed. Give it a decade and we won't even want their gas anymore.
I think you're dead right.1. Putin will crank things up until the pips squeak. The Russian economy will be screwed.
2. I should get a job in the defence industry. A shed load of gear is going to be sold to NATO.
Far from being a master tactician, Putin is acting like a scared and paranoid man, out of touch with reality and surrounded with Yes men. Russia is going to get screwed. Give it a decade and we won't even want their gas anymore.
Re the future gas supplies, memo probably went out 'source elsewhere at any cost'.
BBC said:
TV uses crash pictures in 'mass grave' reports
The website of Russian TV channel REN TV has been using images of victims of the MH17 Malaysian airline disaster to illustrate reports about the alleged discovery of "mass graves" in east Ukraine.
Over the past week, pro-Kremlin media have been full of stories of "mass graves" said to contain victims, including civilians, "tortured", "executed" and "raped" by retreating Ukrainian troops in and around the village of Nizhnya Krynka, 60 km from the insurgent stronghold of Donetsk.
The graves are clear evidence of "war crimes", the Russian media have been saying. On 25 September, REN TV's website ran a story quoting Russian-backed insurgents as saying that "dozens" of bodies had been discovered in three graves, some with organs removed. It illustrated the story with an image of men carrying what appears to be a body bag.
Four days later, REN TV's website - from which a screen grab was taken, above - reported that "bodies continue to be discovered" in areas that it said had been recently vacated by Ukraine's National Guard. The report contained an image of numerous body bags placed on the ground near to what appears to be a piece of white wreckage.
But both of these images were details from photographs that had appeared over a month earlier on the website of the Ukrainian version of the newspaper Argumenty i Fakty in a report referring to MH17, which was downed over insurgent-controlled east Ukraine on 17 July.
The website of Russian TV channel REN TV has been using images of victims of the MH17 Malaysian airline disaster to illustrate reports about the alleged discovery of "mass graves" in east Ukraine.
Over the past week, pro-Kremlin media have been full of stories of "mass graves" said to contain victims, including civilians, "tortured", "executed" and "raped" by retreating Ukrainian troops in and around the village of Nizhnya Krynka, 60 km from the insurgent stronghold of Donetsk.
The graves are clear evidence of "war crimes", the Russian media have been saying. On 25 September, REN TV's website ran a story quoting Russian-backed insurgents as saying that "dozens" of bodies had been discovered in three graves, some with organs removed. It illustrated the story with an image of men carrying what appears to be a body bag.
Four days later, REN TV's website - from which a screen grab was taken, above - reported that "bodies continue to be discovered" in areas that it said had been recently vacated by Ukraine's National Guard. The report contained an image of numerous body bags placed on the ground near to what appears to be a piece of white wreckage.
But both of these images were details from photographs that had appeared over a month earlier on the website of the Ukrainian version of the newspaper Argumenty i Fakty in a report referring to MH17, which was downed over insurgent-controlled east Ukraine on 17 July.
Germany thinking about sending UAV's to help the OSCE monitor the situation on the ground.
http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/bundeswehr-s...
Judging by the way the ceasefire is holding up, anyone want to bet how long before they are swatted out of the air?
Donetsk yesterday
http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/bundeswehr-s...
Judging by the way the ceasefire is holding up, anyone want to bet how long before they are swatted out of the air?
Donetsk yesterday
skyrover said:
Germany thinking about sending UAV's to help the OSCE monitor the situation on the ground.
http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/bundeswehr-s...
Judging by the way the ceasefire is holding up, anyone want to bet how long before they are swatted out of the air?
Well... unsurprisinglyhttp://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/bundeswehr-s...
Judging by the way the ceasefire is holding up, anyone want to bet how long before they are swatted out of the air?
Rebel's vow to shoot down OSCE drones
http://www.theinsider.ua/politics/54363401ae5ad/
Swedish marine searching for Russian submarine in the archipelago of Stockholm.
http://www.svd.se/nyheter/inrikes/english-version-...
http://www.svd.se/nyheter/inrikes/english-version-...
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