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Massive Russian military buildup near Ukraine
- Thread starter Forerunner
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Not really. It makes it relevant, but it also showed that NATO countries don't really want a part in this, outside sending support. Russia got to show how well prepared they are to invade and will make them think twice about any movement, even if they end up joining NATO, Russia could take down the entire country and threaten a bigger conflict that, again, no one wants and no one will risk getting involved in.
But everyone (both Ukraine and NATO countries) knew that NATO countries will not intervene in the war outside of sending support? Not sure why "showing what has been the case" is such a win.
If (and this is a HUGE IF), Ukraine joins NATO, the thing would completely change. Like there was an increase of NATO troops on the countries neighbouring Russia... which clearly shows NATO would get involved... if it affected a NATO country.
Putin just in his will he/won't he phase. Russia will move in both directions at the same time to cause confusion and uncertainty before they reveal which they have actually decided to go with.
The only way I see them not invading with all the resources they put towards this is if they were somehow convinced it wasn't worth it.
Considering it never looked like it was worth it to begin with, I find it hard to believe they will suddenly cancel it all.
The only way I see them not invading with all the resources they put towards this is if they were somehow convinced it wasn't worth it.
Considering it never looked like it was worth it to begin with, I find it hard to believe they will suddenly cancel it all.
That's the thing I don't get, it isn't worth it. War is fucking expensive, why does putin want this. Especially with all the ways it could go wrong.
Because if they want to join, Russia is ready to take action and prevent it. And the rest of the countries won't do a thing. It's not a master plan, we know that everyone knows how big Russian military is, but it's pretty different to make it a talking point for weeks, having NATO powers showing all of their intelligence and predictions, and showing how fast they can't adjust to them. They're proving a point, that as you say everybody may know, but it's different to know it in theory and watching it take place.
It costs a lot of money to house, fuel and maintain such a massive force though. It also leaves Eastern Russia undefended.
Russia already has taken action preventing Ukraine / Georgia / Moldavia from joining NATO. Russia controls land in those 3 countries that prevent them from ever joining NATO (unless they are resolved... which require Russia to care about that).
Russia has not NOW shown they can prevent them from joining NATO... they did a long time ago.
Logistically, it's not cheap, but I wouldn't be surprised if Putin feels as though he can endure this scenario longer than Ukraine, especially if it leads to a weakened resistance in the future.
Only reason Eastern Russia was heavily defended was fear from Chinese agression post Sino Soviet split and their small border war.
I think it speaks volume how comfortable the Russo Chinese relations are now with leaving their Eastern borders mostly undefended.
There was a lot of reporting that they hadn't really done anything to prep the Russian people for war. They have the population behind them on this id Ukraine and the West's fault, but people still hoped for war. I think most inside Russia will be quick to pivot to "see this proves Western hysteria about our legitimate military exercises". And it's not like any of the oligarchs were sitting around rubbing their hands eager to get their hands on whatever Ukrainian resource, because there aren't really any important ones.
But still seems possible, especially choreographed with the Luhansk/Donetsk motion in parliament, that retreating the larger invasion (if that's actually happening) is cover for advancing the smaller invasion to formally take the eastern provinces and maybe expand their effective borders a bit. Who knows. This was all clearly too much to have been a bluff from the start, and if it was all it seems to have done was get the Ukrainian army better armed, push NATO's deployments eastward into Poland and Romania, and way increased the odds Sweden/Finland join up. Which they'll spin into "we didn't actually do it so this is Western aggression!"
They did, but then NATO talks exist again (which yeah, you can say it's precisely because of movements like these), so they set a reminder.
This isn't ending now though. It will continue to develop in the next days/weeks. I'm still in doubt that an invasion will take place, but there's a lot of factors involved.
After Trump, NATO really took a big hit in terms of relevance and all this now only brings it back into the spotlights. Like when is the last time when joining NATO was even a mainstream topic in Sweden and Finland? Also, Ukraine is getting now more support from NATO than ever before even if joining NATO is off the table (as it was also until now). And if the invasion doesn't happen Ukraine will continue to improve their defences even outside NATO and more important, the NATO countries are up to support these improvements efforts.
Oh wow. Who could have predicted that a terrorist act (attempted) would be coming up soon.
Oh, no. I bet they caught some Ukrainian nazis that are directly hired by the Ukrainian president and this requires now an invasion. /s
A good map of Russian units surrounding Ukraine:
maphub.net
Eyes on Russia: The Russia-Ukraine Monitor Map by Cen4infoRes · MapHub
Eyes on Russia: The Russia-Ukraine Monitor Map by Cen4infoRes
maphub.net
No one knows for sure. However internal justifications for Russia to wage war continue that only make sense in selling its righteousness to itself.
Keep holding onto your butts.
Sounds like we have our false flag conveniently the day Putin announces they are "withdrawing"
Again that isn't the reality present. This was a very sloppy build up and movement of forces. Since April Ukraine and NATO have suspected this build up. Russia's OpSec looks terrible by any modern standard and compared to how little we know of Ukrainian military movement and positions this is embarrassing for Russian military command. We have NATO allies and Ukraine routinely broadcasting precise troop movement and intentions letting the world know that Russian high command is compromised all the way to Putin's personal cloister.
If anything is certain it shows how prepared NATO is to deal with Russia militarily and the need for non-member states to make a choice of NATO or risking Russian aggression.
A good map of Russian units surrounding Ukraine:
Eyes on Russia: The Russia-Ukraine Monitor Map by Cen4infoRes · MapHub
Eyes on Russia: The Russia-Ukraine Monitor Map by Cen4infoRes
Man, I'm so clueless, Ukraine is HUGE. Larger than Germany? I thought it was this tiny country.
/cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/VLNVBVINKNJEPJSE2IPXH3RDFY.jpg)
Ukraine hit by cyber attack as U.S. questions Russian troop pullback
Kyiv appeared to blame Russia for a cyber attack on Tuesday as U.S. President Joe Biden warned that more than 150,000 Russian troops were still amassed near Ukraine's borders after Moscow's announcement of a partial pullback was met with scepticism.
www.reuters.com
MOSCOW, Feb 15 (Reuters) - Russia said on Tuesday some of its troops were returning to base after exercises near Ukraine and it mocked repeated Western warnings about a looming invasion, but NATO said it had yet to see any evidence of de-escalation.
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Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Kyiv would only believe that Russia was moving to de-escalate the situation if it saw for itself that Russian troops were being pulled back.
"If we see a withdrawal, we will believe in a de-escalation," Interfax Ukraine quoted him as saying.
Mixed messages here - I wonder if the "foiled" attack was a set up for a real one? Probably getting into tin-foil hat territory with that thinking.
It's an endless cycle. Russia moves troops, countries reinfroce NATO cooperation, which makes Russia move troops, which makes countries reinforce NATO cooperation, etc.
Yeah but you got to consider who is telling what. We know Russian movement's of troops because western government's and media want the public to know what they are doing. Why would they be telling Ukraine's and their own movements? Russian intelligence has 0 reasons to tell them either. You really can't know what they know, but we would be very fool to think that Russian intelligence doesn't know movement of troops elsewhere.
Even before satelites, for example, Allied forces during WW2 knew exactly troop movements and days of invasions (like Barbarosa starting day, which was ignored by Stalin, and the invasion of Crete, which was dismissed by UK heads there).
Neither force here is unprepared. But Russia showed that they can invade if they want and there's really nothing the rest of the world can do about it. And also they don't want to.
It certainly is. My fear is that Russia is saying the right things so when it attacks (which it seems to be laying the groundwork to do) it'll be able to play the "we had no choice" card and its populace and useful idiots in the west will accept it.
Unfortunately with Russia you never know for sure when you're into tin-foil territory if you look at the Chechen bombing and the FSB involving in what triggered the second Chechen war, plus the amount of people who have window or poisoning related accidents
In regards to withdrawals, they can easily be a redeployment as well. Russia is going to be moving troops in the last moments to support their primary attack axises. They are not going to attack from every location they are staged at.
What you need to look for withdrawal wise is specific assault units being pulled back along with removal of first strike weaponry. Another good indicator is if Eastern district forces are leaving because it literally takes a month or more to move them (7000+ km trips).
What you need to look for withdrawal wise is specific assault units being pulled back along with removal of first strike weaponry. Another good indicator is if Eastern district forces are leaving because it literally takes a month or more to move them (7000+ km trips).
Translated quote Scholz: "It is our damned duty and obligation to prevent a warlike escalation in Europe"
Putin is giving another ultimatum, asking Germany and France to resolve the problem in Donbass.
Putin wants these pro russian territories to have veto votes in matters of Ukrainian foreign policies, and turn Ukraine into a federal republic of sorts where pro Russian states would have veto votes too. Keeping Ukraine within their influence.
Guessing if the negotiations won't work, the troops are already at the borders to move in as soon as he recognizes LPR and DPR as Russian territories and moves in to defend them.
He already labeled what's happening as anti Russian genocide today.
Putin wants these pro russian territories to have veto votes in matters of Ukrainian foreign policies, and turn Ukraine into a federal republic of sorts where pro Russian states would have veto votes too. Keeping Ukraine within their influence.
Guessing if the negotiations won't work, the troops are already at the borders to move in as soon as he recognizes LPR and DPR as Russian territories and moves in to defend them.
He already labeled what's happening as anti Russian genocide today.
So far they have been increasing troop flow to the borders on the Kharkiv front not withdrawing.
Withdrawing is mostly redeployment to other sectors from Crimea which isn't most likely the point of incursion.
Just another faint.
Lol who is attacking Eastern Russia? They only care about their western border and creating a buffer from the west. Putin is pissed at former soviet bloc countries getting out from under the iron curtain (Ex. ukraine, poland, romania, etc)
It's more of an infrastructure issue since their home bases are all in the east. If they want to keep these units surrounding Ukraine long term then they'll need to make changes.
They probably will, I suspect a lot of these BTG's will be permanently moved from the Eastern Military District to the Western Military District after Putin's visit to Beijing a week ago.
If he doesn't attack now, next time he can order an attack with much less preparation time.
This buildup is just a continuation of another buildup from March last year, and this one could be part of another buildup in the longer term to focus more on Russia's Western front.
What? There's bases on the Ukranian border. They also have a base in belarus called the hantsavichy radar section.
/cloudfront-us-east-2.images.arcpublishing.com/reuters/GWIRC2FR6FMDFHXBLDI2424F2U.jpg)
Russia says it returns some troops to base in areas near Ukraine
Some troops in Russia's military districts adjacent to Ukraine are returning to their bases after completing drills, Russia's defence ministry said on Tuesday, a move that could de-escalate frictions between Moscow and the West.
www.reuters.com
EDIT: Update, I am wrong about the base in Belarus - it is a radar station the Russians use. But they do joint military drills with Belarus and I don't think they'd have a problem with Putin using their country as a staging ground for an invasion.
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Now that we've drummed up 16th to end of the week as dates of invasion, it'll be somewhat embarrassing if nothing happens.
But I'll take embarrassment over a war any day.
Also maybe embarrassing west will be enough of a reason/cover for Putin to go home?
But I'll take embarrassment over a war any day.
Also maybe embarrassing west will be enough of a reason/cover for Putin to go home?
I don't see a scenario where Putin embarasses the West. It would probably be the opposite if Putin backs down and doesn't get the concessions he wants (Ex. US/NATO entering a binding contract that does NOT allow Ukraine to join their defensive military alliance).
Nothing embarassing about it. If casualties are avoided, everyone looks good. Putin still gets to be a looming threat, but invading Ukraine was never going to benefit Russia in any way.
Yeah, could as well be that this is the new normal for the time being, kinda like COVID has been for last few years.
Or, war. But I'm hoping talking endlessly will prevent that.
Yes I am with you 100%. I believe the German chancellor is visiting the kremlin today to try and talk some sense into Putin.
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