Reports coming in that Ukrainian civil defence forces have been deployed tonight to protect critical infrastructure sites such as utilities, internet hotels, telephone exchanges, hospitals, tv stations.
Current Affairs Ukraine
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peteblue
Welcome back Wayne
Putin has learnt a lot from all this. Germany will fold if gas is cut off, France just wants to be loved. Austria and Hungary will maintain links with Moscow. NATO really just consists of USA, U.K. and Canada. Poland and the Baltic states want to do something but really can’t. The rest of the EU will just peel away under pressure……
cooperman
Player Valuation: £10m
If common sense prevails this will end with an agreement that Ukraine will not join NATO, but will have a protected status as such.
If Russia does invade in the common days, which it looks like will happen, then either way we are screwed.
Standing aside (yet providing weapons) is a statement that will have huge ramifications. The European-US alliance is effectively second rate. You'd expect to see China go into Taiwan not long after.
How far will Russia go unopposed in this instance? The Baltic States will at risk, potentially Poland. These are NATO members so you could argue that Western involvement is unavoidable in any case.
If NATO forces actively fight in Ukraine, then we're on very shaky ground immediately. Things can very quickly boil over and escalate.
I would imagine Russia and the us will sign a declaration to rule out the use of nukes unless an act of aggression is carried out on their own soil though.
If Russia does invade in the common days, which it looks like will happen, then either way we are screwed.
Standing aside (yet providing weapons) is a statement that will have huge ramifications. The European-US alliance is effectively second rate. You'd expect to see China go into Taiwan not long after.
How far will Russia go unopposed in this instance? The Baltic States will at risk, potentially Poland. These are NATO members so you could argue that Western involvement is unavoidable in any case.
If NATO forces actively fight in Ukraine, then we're on very shaky ground immediately. Things can very quickly boil over and escalate.
I would imagine Russia and the us will sign a declaration to rule out the use of nukes unless an act of aggression is carried out on their own soil though.
peteblue
Welcome back Wayne
Ukraine already has supposed protected status. When it gave up it’s nuclear weapons, Russia, USA and U.K. guaranteed its protection…Russia tells lies……
TheSouthernBlue
Player Valuation: £500k
I see the view of both sides, Putin doesn’t want Ukraine in NATO and legally allowed Nukes parked on his doorstep within 5 min striking distance of Moscow, and the Western nations do not want to surrender an nation which is considers a tactical base.
Neither side will concede, Putin has set his stance up and said his position, the west has said theirs. This is a remake of the Cuban missile crisis, without the nukes being parked on each others doorsteps.
Only way peace remains is with Ukraine given special status to remain neutral and not a member of NATO, Putin loses no face as he gets what he wants and he always said he wouldn’t invade so he’s the hero for his country. The West walk away getting to say they avoided war and saved Ukraine with their pact.
The Russian contingent turned up at NATO in New York a month or so back, apparently had the tea and biscuits and paid lip service to members. They’re not backing down.
Neither side will concede, Putin has set his stance up and said his position, the west has said theirs. This is a remake of the Cuban missile crisis, without the nukes being parked on each others doorsteps.
Only way peace remains is with Ukraine given special status to remain neutral and not a member of NATO, Putin loses no face as he gets what he wants and he always said he wouldn’t invade so he’s the hero for his country. The West walk away getting to say they avoided war and saved Ukraine with their pact.
The Russian contingent turned up at NATO in New York a month or so back, apparently had the tea and biscuits and paid lip service to members. They’re not backing down.
carolinablue232
Player Valuation: £70m
I just don’t think he’s going to risk sanctions and a long drawn out war even if his ego wants it for his legacy. Maybe he’s enjoying market manipulation or just flexing. Idk. As far as the response goes, the western countries are doing what they should in instructing everyone to leave. The absolute worst case for them would be to not overreact and then have something happen. If everyone leaves and nothing goes down, they still don’t have mud on their faces.
Martin Alvito
Player Valuation: £50m
It looks bad politically if the West overreacts, and might cause people to ignore warnings the next time the Western governments tell people to get out. See: COVID (with the irony being that the initial lockdowns worked, thus perceptually defeating their purpose).
Putin very well could be just yanking everyone's chains. If both sides do not want war, there are clear exit ramps. Putin could simply be pushing as hard as he can in order to get the best deal that he can, while discrediting his opponents' media positions. It would be like him.
He also could have decided that no time is better than the present to push NATO almost entirely off his borders. He knows that we'll stand back and watch, and that going in will further divide continental Europe against the US, UK and Canada. It's in his interest to widen that schism as much as possible.
peteblue
Welcome back Wayne
Who the hell are Russia or ourselves to tell an independent Ukraine what they should or shouldn‘t do. And if we are talking about nukes 5 minutes from cities, what about Kaliningrad, a Russian outpost with nukes in the middle of the EU…….
Diogenes the Cynic
Player Valuation: £40m
Tell your family you love them (if indeed you do) as it looks like we are going to war.
Let us not appease Putin and encourage the Chinese with our lack of backbone.
Sometimes attack (or at least not retreat) is the best form of defence.
Do not back down or history will not be kind to you.
Let us not appease Putin and encourage the Chinese with our lack of backbone.
Sometimes attack (or at least not retreat) is the best form of defence.
Do not back down or history will not be kind to you.
Martin Alvito
Player Valuation: £50m
We've been over this. NATO has clearly signaled that it's not going to extend Article 5 protections to non-members, which is probably wise.
The Russia-Ukraine problem is radically different than the China-Taiwan problem because the Taiwan Strait exists. See above.
Russia is almost certainly not going to try to take the Baltic States, much less Poland, without very reliable intelligence suggesting that NATO will fracture. A total fracture is slow suicide; no NATO/EU members want to repeat the mistakes of Chamberlain. At the same time, NATO does not a war right now, so any forces in Ukraine will have orders to evacuate/stand down.
Both the US and Russia already have clear no-first-use policies with respect to nukes. The US has been working diligently in the last two decades towards securing an advantage in the strategic space. We withdrew from the anti-ballistic missile (ABM) treaty, started working on shooting down ICBMs, and recently conducted successful tests of that capability. We have also dramatically improved the hard-target kill capability of what we do have deployed in our ICBM force with targeting and fuse upgrades. If I were on Putin's side of the table, I would be edgy. One way of interpreting those developments, especially if you're a former counterintelligence guy, is that those moves are a prelude to future aggression.
Look at it this way - the only thing preventing first-use is the risk of an unacceptable response. If the US gains 100% superiority in the nuclear space (ie: we can nuke you and we know you can't nuke us back), mutually assured destruction collapses. The US could then credibly threaten to nuke much of Russia. The combination of the country's size and the direction of prevailing winds means that the fallout would stay right where we want it to - over them.
Martin Alvito
Player Valuation: £50m
That isn't the way to play this hand. Sometimes, the time is not right to shove all of your chips into the center of the pot. Patience can be a virtue.
The dirt dictates that we have to cede Ukraine. As bad as defending the new border would be, trying to fight Putin in Ukraine would be way worse. I'd say we're looking at a Second Cold War, assuming that the EU wakes up and plays ball, and another arms race.
Don't worry about the Chinese. They can't win a straight up fight against the US Navy without nuking it. That would be suicide, so they're not going to try it.
Diogenes the Cynic
Player Valuation: £40m
Martin Alvito
Player Valuation: £50m
That isn't the right lens to view this through. Look at a map. Ukraine is completely indefensible. Putin can hit it from three sides. No matter how many boots we put on the ground, he has more. He can play hit-and-run all day wherever he has a tactical advantage at the moment based on how we configure, and win by attrition. I'd much rather defend across the wretched front that would be in Eastern Europe than fight in a box. That never works.
If you want to argue that doing nothing when he took Crimea was a Chamberlain moment, I'm not going to argue. If you want to argue that letting Belarus fall under Putin's sphere of influence was a catastrophic mistake, ditto. We've put ourselves in this pot for a sizable chunk of change, but this isn't the fight that will let us recoup our losses. Better to walk away, know that it's on, and pick a better spot for the actual fight.
Diogenes the Cynic
Player Valuation: £40m
Agree with a lot of that.
Indeed I think it's going to be best if we pick the spot for the fight rather than wait for Putin to past the point of no return where we are reacting and cede time, ground and tactical advantage to him due to uncertainty.
I just don't see us as being as tactically astute or brave as Putin unfortunately. Our politicians are pathetic pretenders who know nothing of war. Hopeful they will be advised well and take advice from the military who know better.
Martin Alvito
Player Valuation: £50m
In general, the run-up to war in a democratic country is a series of political outputs. An authoritarian leader that is reasonably secure on the throne tends to prep the right way because they have the right decision-making structure: one guy calling the shots supported by skilled advisors. This is why democratic countries tend to get worked in the run-up.
Once war breaks out, winning usually trumps all other political considerations, and the democratic countries hand over its conduct to the appropriate leadership structure. With their free-market economies, the democratic countries tend to have more resources to retool to the production of materiel. As long as they don't outright lose the war from the outset, they tend to win in the limit.
This is why I don't like picking the fight here. Our supply lines would be a mess (and Putin could hit them from Belarus unless we push him off that border), we'd be risking having a bunch of forces cut off entirely, and there's only one direction where advancing makes sense: into Belarus, which is the opposite of what we want to do politically.
The best thing to be defending in modern warfare is an island surrounded by water; the worst thing to be defending is a metaphorical island surrounded by dirt.
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