I suspect that all Russia really wants is what they've always wanted... a warm water port. Anything else is just macho posturing. They want Ukraine because they want the Crimea. They want the Crimea because they want Sevastapol. But give it a few more years of global warming, and they should have plenty of warm water ports.

I'm not very surprised that there is no thread about it. I got impression that in this board things happening outside US don't get much attention.
I don't know how likely is Russia invasion in Ukraine. I still want to believe that it won't happen. Invading whole Ukraine isn't same as invading pro-Russian regions like Crimea or Donbass. I doubt that they will reach Kyiv. It's more likely that they will try to take another part of eastern Ukraine, like Kharkiv where part of pro-Russian people isn't small.

And I'm not suprised about their actions at all. They already blocked Estonia from sending weapons to Ukraine. Offcourse, later they will impose "strict sanctions" and they will be deeply concenerned, but as we saw so many times already, sanctions don't work.

Russia is doing what it wants. It took Crimea, made Belarus its puppet state, shot down a Malaysian passenger jet and blamed it on the Ukrainians, refused to give back Polish government plane that crashed in Smolensk, forced the US to cancel a deal with Poland that was supposed to place missile defense systems along its eastern border. Russian agents poisoned Sergei Skripal and his daughter, poisoned and then arrested Alexei Navalny. Putin and Lavrov often threaten other countries and lie in public. Russian elections are known to be a joke and in one of them there was so many fraudulent votes for Putin that the sum of votes shown on TV was over 100%.

I'm fairly certain that if they invade Ukraine, the UN, NATO and the EU will issue formal letters to Putin, maybe even call him, then do some reconnaissance flights, drop some aid packages, accept refugees and that's going to be it.

I'm sure they want various things, but I think most of them are 'nice to haves', the port is the 'must have'.

If they don't want Ukraine to be part of NATO, then what's the answer? Russia takes Ukraine, and it becomes part of Russia, and then Russia borders Poland and Romania, so "we don't want Poland/Romania to be part of NATO" ... If this is the main concern, then the only solution for Russia is to take over all of mainland Europe. Estonia, Latvia etc have been in NATO for years, and it may have been a kick in the Baltics for Russia, but why would Ukraine be the concern?

Russia tends to achieve its political aims by other means. They weakened Europe by influencing the Brexit referendum so that the UK left the union. They can further control Europe almost literally at the flick of a switch on the gas pipeline. They weakened the US and its standing abroad by promoting the election of one of the most divisive presidents in history, who also had the benefit of being both a halfwit and an isolationist.

Tanks are often just populist strongman crap, or the means to test an opponent's (US/NATO) resolve.

Yes, that's kind of the point I'm trying to make.

Maybe they will send in the tanks, maybe they won't, but it's difficult to determine how much of it is brinkmanship and bravado. Russia's recent history demonstrates that more subtle approaches, elections, gas pipelines, even individual assassinations, have been hugely effective tools by which to achieve their aims.


Yes, this is the big question. I'd certainly agree that if Russia conclude there will be no real opposition, then the tanks will roll across the border. I'm just suggesting that tanks are also a hugely effective tool of intimidation, which can be a goal in itself. As to whether to actually press ahead, Russia has to consider very carefully what form it thinks any reaction would take. They won't act until they've weighed up the consequences.

This is a very serious situation and Putin is not fucking around.

Boris Johnson has just said to Putin:

"If Russia pursues this path, many Russian mothers' sons will not be coming home."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qW9AFBfl0N0

Maybe that's the reason why crypto and stocks are crashing lately.

Germany wants their Nord Stream 2 pipeline, and I recall reading that they would halt the pipeline if Russia were to invade (so brave of them, yes). It begs the question as to what actually would stop Russia if they know that NATO countries are split on what to do in the event of an invasion. The US made it clear they will not get involved, they'll just station troops in surrounding countries to watch at the dumpster fire in Ukraine.

According to President Biden, Putin has decided to invade and will do so in the next few days. Also today, there was an apparent bombing in Ukraine that may have been a false flag operation intended to create a pretext for an invasion.

He and his administration probably does in fact believe that, but I still lean toward thinking that they're being played. I don't think that Russia will do anything that will result in most NATO countries saying, "Yep, that was definitely an invasion of Ukraine, so now we're doing all of the crushing sanctions we'd planned." If Russia fully withdraws without much incident like they've been publicly saying, then at this point it'd be a big blow to the credibility of Biden/America/NATO. Even more likely is that they continue their threatening posture to keep the West in an uncomfortable state of limbo for months.

I wouldn't bet much against an invasion, though, and on the other side of the argument, if Putin knows that he eventually wants to take a piece of Ukraine, now would be the perfect time. The energy market is currently uniquely favorable to Russia, German politics biases them strongly against cutting all ties with Russia, Putin needs a boost in his domestic approval, etc. Also, if Trump is president in 3 years (a distinct possibility), then an attack against Ukraine years in the past under Biden isn't something that Trump would particularly care about.

It looks like if they will do something, we're most likely to see it in the next few days.

It is hard to say what is actually known, and how reliable the intelligence is.

When we withdrew from Afghanistan, the US intelligence predicted that it would take months for the Taliban to take over the country when it actually took about 48 hours, and there was nearly zero resistance. Now US intelligence is saying that Ukraine could fall within 48 hours of Russia launching an invasion. I am not sure the basis for that prediction, however, I do believe there will be much more resistance to an invasion as Ukraine has resisted Russia in recent years.

It does appear that western intelligence was right about a false flag operation. There was a bombing against the leader of a separatist group that had no casualties. I would expect a failed assassination attempt to have some civilian and/or security casualties.

Putin has claimed to be withdrawing his troops from the Ukraine border, but there does not appear to be evidence of that. It does appear that war is imminent.

The best time for Russia to invade would be after the Nordstream 2 pipeline is complete (perhaps one year later), during the winter, when Europe would be dependent on Russian gas via the pipeline. Germany and Frace appear to be the weak links in potential sanctions against Russia. That is fitting considering that an invasion of Ukraine would be the biggest war in Europe since WW2, and neither country was on the right side of either world war (Germany was part of the Axis, and France quickly fell).

Trump is not going to start a new war in response to a Russian invasion, although I do believe he would be open to continuing military operations in the region if he is convinced that is what is best for the US. Trump was harder on Russia than either Obama or Biden, despite the baseless claims of being a Russian agent.

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The Ukraine president has called for a meeting with Putin, so the two sides can come to a peaceful "settlement". It is possible that Ukraine will be willing to give up some of its territory in exchange for the promise of peace. This could be seen as a win at home for Putin (which is likely the root cause for the Russian aggression), and would avoid the bloodshed associated with war.