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OT: American Politics

axlsalinger said:
What is Putin doing here, trying to start WW3? If he was serious about an actual invasion, wouldn't he have done it with his puppet in the White House?
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This came as something of a reaction to Ukraine and Nato starting to do some heavy petting with each other in 2019-2020. Prior to that, Russia had been waging a proxy campaign using "seperatists" (as in, mostly Russian troops dressed up as Ukie seperatists) and largely feeding Ukraine their lunch, but the Ukrainians learned their lessons by early 2017 and started sorting their shit out, cutting troop and territory losses. 2018 brought a bunch of Ukie legislation calling out Russia as the aggressor in this and the Ukie's reclaiming all lost territory.

Throughout this all, the Ukie's have rightfully known that inclusion into Nato is the only path forward for them that includes guarantees of territorial sovereignty. Vlad knows this too and I'm not convinced that he doesn't want to annex the whole fucking place. Vlad is playing a game of chicken that Nato isn't willing to go to the wall over Ukraine and he's right, but he has pressure points that he's sensitive about. Him and his oligarch buddies getting locked out of the western banking sector is a nightmare for him and it's coming.
 
The Putin regime is well aware of those financial sanctions and may have tried to establish, at least partly, a parallel system with other authoritarians. That’s the speculation. They also built up massive foreign currency reserves. That said, there economy has been in the shit for a while now. Further sanctions, including the US proposal to stop all exports by US firms to Russia of semiconductors (no matter where the chips are physically made), etc certainly won’t help.

His challenge, I think, is to keep the other oligarchs in line. They knuckled under because it was still crazy lucrative and prevented window ejection from high places, but if all of them get their assets frozen and are persona non grata in London and Nice… well… the cartel gets shaky.

Maybe all they do is grab a land bridge from the Donbas to Crimea, take a few lumps and declare victory. But that still doesn’t resolve that the rest of Ukraine will be irretrievably lost to the west and will likely become armed to the teeth, with or without NATO membership.

And if they grab all of it, they will likely be stuck with a very violent decade long insurgency and they will be international pariahs. And Ukraine will still be totally lost, at least politically. It’ll be like a combination of East Germany and Ireland prior to it’s independence.
 
lecoqsportif said:
The Putin regime is well aware of those financial sanctions and may have tried to establish, at least partly, a parallel system with other authoritarians. That’s the speculation. They also built up massive foreign currency reserves. That said, there economy has been in the shit for a while now. Further sanctions, including the US proposal to stop all exports by US firms to Russia of semiconductors (no matter where the chips are physically made), etc certainly won’t help.

His challenge, I think, is to keep the other oligarchs in line. They knuckled under because it was still crazy lucrative and prevented window ejection from high places, but if all of them get their assets frozen and are persona non grata in London and Nice… well… the cartel gets shaky.

Maybe all they do is grab a land bridge from the Donbas to Crimea, take a few lumps and declare victory. But that still doesn’t resolve that the rest of Ukraine will be irretrievably lost to the west and will likely become armed to the teeth, with or without NATO membership.

And if they grab all of it, they will likely be stuck with a very violent decade long insurgency and they will be international pariahs. And Ukraine will still be totally lost, at least politically. It’ll be like a combination of East Germany and Ireland prior to it’s independence.
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It's already had some unintended consequences of pushing Sweden and Finland into considering Nato membership.

foreignpolicy.com

Swedish Foreign Minister: Joining NATO Is Up to Us

Russian threats to Ukraine have spurred security conversations in northern Europe.
foreignpolicy.com foreignpolicy.com

Would turn the Baltic into a big Nato ringed lake and be a strategic nightmare for Vlad.
 
Yeah, Sweden/Finland is stark. After all these years, yet now they are clearly alarmed.

The fact Russia sees medium/small neighbouring countries desire to align with west as some kind security threat speaks volumes… the real threat is their own people. If this goes badly, we can expect a violent crackdown inside Russia. Navalny will probably “have an accident” in jail.
 
lecoqsportif said:
Yeah, Sweden/Finland is stark. After all these years, yet now they are clearly alarmed.

The fact Russia sees medium/small neighbouring countries desire to align with west as some kind security threat speaks volumes… the real threat is their own people. If this goes badly, we can expect a violent crackdown inside Russia. Navalny will probably “have an accident” in jail.
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curious how they'll manage the window thing in there...
 
Volcanologist said:
curious how they'll manage the window thing in there...
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Easy. Shove him out the side door of the prison, then have a guard tower pump several dozen bullets into him. “Shot while trying to escape.”

Or just poison him or smother him, and pass it off as “natural causes”.

Kind of surprised Vladdy hasn’t already arranged something like that.
 
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