Wednesday was a rumored D-Day at one point
Whole situation has been interesting from a game theory perspective.
I think all sides realize that Putin wants to push his military might around to extract some concessions from the West. Energy dependence guarantees and the such for backing down.
If he doesn’t get what he wants, he can still push a bit and take the territories that are largely controlled by separatists anyways.
The West has responded by basically daring Putin to actually invade, which he’s not really all that interested in. Public opinion doesn’t matter much to him, but I can’t imagine the Russian public is that thrilled about invading Ukraine and having another set of sanctions slapped on the Russian economy.
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Which companies benefit economically from having competition wrecked by sanctions on Russia?
Was there a theory that he wouldn’t want to upset Xi and would wait until Winter Olympics were over? Closing ceremony is Sunday.
I heard that before too, but that was a total guess.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison echoed the concerns of Mr Biden, suggesting a Russian invasion of Ukraine appears to be “regrettably inevitable”.
Australia has zero strategic interest in that part of the world but as virtually a vassal state of the US tends to sing from the same hymn book. But this makes me slightly more inclined to take Western warnings at face value, as there’s not really any reason for Morrison to be this definitive.
Morrison also ruled out Australia sending ground troops to Ukraine, which must come as an enormous relief to Putin.
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Those with the most cash reserves
Putin could take all of Ukraine at this point and I’d still read posts of people insisting he really doesn’t want to invade them.
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And posts from awful shitbags who should have been banned a long time ago saying he’s actually a swell, misunderstood guy.
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Has anyone here actually claimed the US’s main goal is to selflessly save Ukraine? I’m sure plenty of us here would prioritize the well-being of the civilians of Ukraine over geo-politics, but I would be pretty surprised if any regs here were naïve enough to think that was the US government’s main concern.
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You guys should send a plane full of some of your murderous, poisonous animals and creepy crawlers, and air-drop it between the Russian army and the border. And throw in a bunch of that harmless, but massive and scary spider we were posting about here too. A hunter something or other?
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Non-Russian energy companies
Reddit live thread thingy with multiple reports of the wife of the pro Russian Ukrainian party suddenly leaving
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With all these recent reports coming in its really hard to distinguish what is actually true. From my perspective if I was an Ukrainian commander I would urge my troops to not shoot anything into these regions and only fire back with hand guns when shot at. Question is how hard it is to remain the “good” guy in the public eye when the war of misinformation is going on.
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Not expanding NATO into the Ukraine seems like a good trade for not being invaded if I was Ukrainian. War doesn’t sound fun.
I think that’s true, but what happens if you make this “deal” with Putin now and in 6 months he comes back and threatens to invade again asking for more? I guess it might be worth it to stave off war on Ukrainian soil for 6 months but it hardly feels like it would be the end of it.
think we might be better off if our journalists did this
https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/swazxn/brawl_breaks_out_on_ukrainian_tv_as_journalist/
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usa is not a savior, and biden/blinken isn’t pretending to be one. as a matter of this one presidency (because this changes every four years), the state is supporting its allies in europe, and another one who wants to be an ally. there will be economic advantages to having well developed and secure allies, and that alone is good enough reason to do it, but it will come too far into the future for biden to care about. the benefits won’t be enjoyed by him in this term, and likely not in his lifetime.
however, to prevent a war instigated by a maniacal dictator IMO is a far better reason for stand with ukraine and other nato states in this conflict. ideologically as well, helping a willing developing democracy choose its own path is about a million times more in-line with usa’s purported “values”, than nation building on the ruins of iraq/afghanistan.g
If you think the Biden administration’s decisions are based on anything other than the United States’ economic/geo-political interests and/or the wishes of the military industrial complex, then I don’t know what to tell you.
The rest is the nice stuff they say after they already made the decision, because it fits the purported values of the United States.
living in world with fewer dictators is in my economic/geo-political interest
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