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> Why insist on further escalation? As a befuddled onlooker myself, I am surprised that the movements of the Russian military inside its territory must be inte

> Why insist on further escalation? As a befuddled onlooker myself, I am surprised that the movements of the Russian military inside its territory must be interpreted by the outside world as an escalation. I understand the nervousness of Ukraine, but not of the US. If Russia invades, then by all means, the West can destroy it economically; but until it does, what is the point of all this saber-rattling? Just as I don't understand the point of NATO's eastwards expansion, which, in turn, makes the Russians nervous. If the European countries are worried by the military buildup along Russia's western border, surely it must be easy to empathise with the Russian worry about Nato including more Eastern European countries and being able to deploy missiles there, which can be used both defensively and offensively and which puts Moscow within 5-minute reach, or something like that.

piva00 5y ago
It's not simply "movement", it's amassing quite a sizeable portion of its armed forces near borders. No country interprets that other than an escalation if it comes from a hostile neighbour... Even between friendly countries it's a bit eyebrows raising behaviour.
- kgeist 5y ago
  >it's amassing quite a sizeable portion of its armed forces near borders Russia is pretty large (and Ukraine too), it may look like the forces are "near Ukrainian borders" on the map (when zoomed out), but it can be as far as 350 km (at its widest, UK is 500 km, for comparison), which is deep into Russia's most populated territories.
  - gls2ro 5y ago
    I read this the other way. As Russia is so huge, then having the forces at 350 km/500 km near the border is "close" enough to the border.
    - kgeist 5y ago
      I understand, but the majority of Russian population lives along the Western and Southern borders. See the density map: https://vividmaps.com/population-density-of-russia https://vividmaps.com/population-density-of-russia Anything in that area of sizeable Russian population can be proclaimed "near Ukrainian borders". 75% of the country is uninhabited. It would make little sense to station most troops in completely unpopulated areas where nothing happens.
  - piva00 5y ago
    Soloti is barely 30km away from the border. Klimovo is ~15km away, Klintsy is ~80km. I left out the places I've heard about amassing troops in Crimea as I believe troops reinforcement there wouldn't necessarily be preparation for invasion but could reinforce Russian grip in Crimea. I don't believe amassing troops 15-80km away from any border wouldn't be seen as "close to the border", no matter the size of the country, even for the Netherlands and its tiny landmass it would be very curious to see something like that happening.
    - kgeist 5y ago
      Well, it quickly adds up. How many troops are there in Klintsy specifically (actually on the border), and how many troops are stationed in other places which are considered "near the borders", but actually much farther away? I've seen reports of military build-up in 200 miles from the border, as something next to Ukraine. Do they really have 100,000 personnel in 15 km from Ukraine (actually on the border)? IIRC Klintsy has a military base which they started building in 2016. I'd like to see a detailed analysis, do you have a link? I may be downplaying Putin's insanity.
      - piva00 5y ago
        I don't have the answers to your questions, I'm not anyhow close to MILINT to know troop counts and accurate positioning, etc. I don't believe either you'll be able to find open information with such granularity, reports were never about 100k personnel 15km away from Ukraine, that's a strawman, the 100k figure is about all the troops amassed around Ukraine's borders (Crimea + eastern border + northern border with Russia + Russian troops amassed in Belarus on Ukraine's northern border, etc.), so obviously that no, there aren't 100k troops barely 15km away from Ukraine, that in itself would be an extremely alarming escalation...
    - fer 5y ago
      Actually Crimea is probably the hottest spot for any action, as Ukraine has been cutting the supply of fresh water to the peninsula. They have running water for 3-5h a day. If war starts, securing water supply to Crimea is one of the first steps they would do.
kgeist 5y ago
>As a befuddled onlooker myself, I am surprised that the movements of the Russian military inside its territory must be interpreted by the outside world as an escalation Russia is most populous in the Western areas near Ukraine, so certain military activity in that region doesn't necessarily mean a plan for a full-scale invasion. It borders 14 countries, so there's always movement of the Russian military near someone's border. NATO's eastward expansion makes Putin nervous, so it's understandable why he would want to strengthen the Western border.
- hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
  > NATO's eastward expansion makes Putin nervous, so it's understandable why he would want to strengthen the Western border. What kind of eastward expansion, exactly? The last western neighbors of Russia joined NATO in 2004. The tiny states that joined 2017/2020 are further away from Russia. You need to pass at least 6 borders if you want to reach Northern Macedonia from Russia.
  - kgeist 5y ago
    It's what Putin believes. And Ukraine/Georgia clearly stated their desire to join NATO. Ukraine, for example, amended their constitution to make the accession of the country to NATO (and EU) their main foreign policy objective: https://www.voanews.com/a/ukraine-amends-constitution-to-cement-eu-nato-course/4776669.html https://www.voanews.com/a/ukraine-amends-constitution-to-cem...
xdennis 5y ago
> Just as I don't understand the point of NATO's eastwards expansion Because these formerly Russian-occupied countries want to defend themselves from a future Russian occupation. You can see many comments here questioning why the west should care about Ukraine given that it's not part of NATO. Well, that's why all those countries, and more now, want to be part of NATO.
- azangru 5y ago
  > Because these formerly Russian-occupied countries want to defend themselves from a future Russian occupation. This explains why such countries would want to join NATO, but not why NATO would want to take them in and be committed to defending them from external aggression. Not every country that expresses an intention to join NATO is accepted. Consider that in mid-nineties, Russia, then under the pro-western president Yeltsin rather than the isolationist Putin, asked to be accepted into NATO, but was rejected [0]. So Russia — at least as it complains to the rest of the world — finds itself sitting next to a growing hostile military alliance whose main historical purpose was to confront the USSR, which no longer exists, but which Russia perceives itself to be a successor to. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/dec/31/russia-associate-membership-nato-malcolm-rifkind-chequers-boris-yeltsin https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/dec/31/russia-assoc...
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  Yeah. As I read it, NATO expansion is not a "push" by NATO; it's a "pull" by non-NATO countries trying to join.
caskstrength 5y ago
> As a befuddled onlooker myself, I am surprised that the movements of the Russian military inside its territory must be interpreted by the outside world as an escalation. I understand the nervousness of Ukraine, but not of the US. If Russia invades, then by all means, the West can destroy it economically; but until it does, what is the point of all this saber-rattling? To bring Russian military movements in spotlight. Otherwise they will manufacture some pretext (stage a provocation or just claim they are defending me (Russian-speaking person) from raging Ukrainian nazis) and will muddy the water with misinformation campaigns. German and French governments will happily accept Russian reasoning because they don't really care about Ukraine and just want their cheap gas to flow. Current media attention makes it much harder for European leaders to just hold some post factum Normandy-format-or-whatever "peace" talks (giving Russia more and more Ukrainian territory in the process) without some level of condemnation from their electorate. > Just as I don't understand the point of NATO's eastwards expansion, which, in turn, makes the Russians nervous. If the European countries are worried by the military buildup along Russia's western border, surely it must be easy to empathise with the Russian worry about Nato including more Eastern European countries and being able to deploy missiles there, which can be used both defensively and offensively and which puts Moscow within 5-minute reach, or something like that. This is the narrative that Russia is pushing, but it makes no sense if you think about it for a second. NATO could have accepted Ukraine long ago (they had 7 years to do that even after the last war), if it just wanted to deploy missiles here. It seems like NATO goal is to not accept Ukraine (and Georgia) for as long as possible without stating this straight up (in order not to discourage peoples of these countries from pro-Western course, I guess). In fact, joining NATO was very unpopular in Ukraine until Putin's actions changed that.
- azangru 5y ago
  > This is the narrative that Russia is pushing, but it makes no sense if you think about it for a second. I have two questions about this, and I am asking honestly, because I don't understand any of this shit. One, if NATO had no intention of accepting Ukraine and Georgia, why wouldn't it (or whichever countries are responsible) commit to this as Russia wants it to. That would defang Russia's false narrative about NATO expansion. And the other, if you are offering an argument from a counterfactual (NATO could have accepted Ukraine long ago, as you say), why didn't Russia, if it intended to devour Ukraine, do so seven years ago when Ukraine was at its weakest? Arguably, both Ukraine has become a tougher nut to crack since then, and the international community has agreed on how best to punish Russia if this happens again.

piva00 5y ago

It's not simply "movement", it's amassing quite a sizeable portion of its armed forces near borders. No country interprets that other than an escalation if it comes from a hostile neighbour... Even between friendly countries it's a bit eyebrows raising behaviour.

kgeist 5y ago
>it's amassing quite a sizeable portion of its armed forces near borders Russia is pretty large (and Ukraine too), it may look like the forces are "near Ukrainian borders" on the map (when zoomed out), but it can be as far as 350 km (at its widest, UK is 500 km, for comparison), which is deep into Russia's most populated territories.
- gls2ro 5y ago
  I read this the other way. As Russia is so huge, then having the forces at 350 km/500 km near the border is "close" enough to the border.
  - kgeist 5y ago
    I understand, but the majority of Russian population lives along the Western and Southern borders. See the density map: https://vividmaps.com/population-density-of-russia https://vividmaps.com/population-density-of-russia Anything in that area of sizeable Russian population can be proclaimed "near Ukrainian borders". 75% of the country is uninhabited. It would make little sense to station most troops in completely unpopulated areas where nothing happens.
- piva00 5y ago
  Soloti is barely 30km away from the border. Klimovo is ~15km away, Klintsy is ~80km. I left out the places I've heard about amassing troops in Crimea as I believe troops reinforcement there wouldn't necessarily be preparation for invasion but could reinforce Russian grip in Crimea. I don't believe amassing troops 15-80km away from any border wouldn't be seen as "close to the border", no matter the size of the country, even for the Netherlands and its tiny landmass it would be very curious to see something like that happening.
  - kgeist 5y ago
    Well, it quickly adds up. How many troops are there in Klintsy specifically (actually on the border), and how many troops are stationed in other places which are considered "near the borders", but actually much farther away? I've seen reports of military build-up in 200 miles from the border, as something next to Ukraine. Do they really have 100,000 personnel in 15 km from Ukraine (actually on the border)? IIRC Klintsy has a military base which they started building in 2016. I'd like to see a detailed analysis, do you have a link? I may be downplaying Putin's insanity.
    - piva00 5y ago
      I don't have the answers to your questions, I'm not anyhow close to MILINT to know troop counts and accurate positioning, etc. I don't believe either you'll be able to find open information with such granularity, reports were never about 100k personnel 15km away from Ukraine, that's a strawman, the 100k figure is about all the troops amassed around Ukraine's borders (Crimea + eastern border + northern border with Russia + Russian troops amassed in Belarus on Ukraine's northern border, etc.), so obviously that no, there aren't 100k troops barely 15km away from Ukraine, that in itself would be an extremely alarming escalation...
  - fer 5y ago
    Actually Crimea is probably the hottest spot for any action, as Ukraine has been cutting the supply of fresh water to the peninsula. They have running water for 3-5h a day. If war starts, securing water supply to Crimea is one of the first steps they would do.

kgeist 5y ago

>As a befuddled onlooker myself, I am surprised that the movements of the Russian military inside its territory must be interpreted by the outside world as an escalation Russia is most populous in the Western areas near Ukraine, so certain military activity in that region doesn't necessarily mean a plan for a full-scale invasion. It borders 14 countries, so there's always movement of the Russian military near someone's border. NATO's eastward expansion makes Putin nervous, so it's understandable why he would want to strengthen the Western border.

hdjjhhvvhga 5y ago
> NATO's eastward expansion makes Putin nervous, so it's understandable why he would want to strengthen the Western border. What kind of eastward expansion, exactly? The last western neighbors of Russia joined NATO in 2004. The tiny states that joined 2017/2020 are further away from Russia. You need to pass at least 6 borders if you want to reach Northern Macedonia from Russia.
- kgeist 5y ago
  It's what Putin believes. And Ukraine/Georgia clearly stated their desire to join NATO. Ukraine, for example, amended their constitution to make the accession of the country to NATO (and EU) their main foreign policy objective: https://www.voanews.com/a/ukraine-amends-constitution-to-cement-eu-nato-course/4776669.html https://www.voanews.com/a/ukraine-amends-constitution-to-cem...

xdennis 5y ago

> Just as I don't understand the point of NATO's eastwards expansion Because these formerly Russian-occupied countries want to defend themselves from a future Russian occupation. You can see many comments here questioning why the west should care about Ukraine given that it's not part of NATO. Well, that's why all those countries, and more now, want to be part of NATO.

azangru 5y ago
> Because these formerly Russian-occupied countries want to defend themselves from a future Russian occupation. This explains why such countries would want to join NATO, but not why NATO would want to take them in and be committed to defending them from external aggression. Not every country that expresses an intention to join NATO is accepted. Consider that in mid-nineties, Russia, then under the pro-western president Yeltsin rather than the isolationist Putin, asked to be accepted into NATO, but was rejected [0]. So Russia — at least as it complains to the rest of the world — finds itself sitting next to a growing hostile military alliance whose main historical purpose was to confront the USSR, which no longer exists, but which Russia perceives itself to be a successor to. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/dec/31/russia-associate-membership-nato-malcolm-rifkind-chequers-boris-yeltsin https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/dec/31/russia-assoc...
AnimalMuppet 5y ago
Yeah. As I read it, NATO expansion is not a "push" by NATO; it's a "pull" by non-NATO countries trying to join.

caskstrength 5y ago

> As a befuddled onlooker myself, I am surprised that the movements of the Russian military inside its territory must be interpreted by the outside world as an escalation. I understand the nervousness of Ukraine, but not of the US. If Russia invades, then by all means, the West can destroy it economically; but until it does, what is the point of all this saber-rattling? To bring Russian military movements in spotlight. Otherwise they will manufacture some pretext (stage a provocation or just claim they are defending me (Russian-speaking person) from raging Ukrainian nazis) and will muddy the water with misinformation campaigns. German and French governments will happily accept Russian reasoning because they don't really care about Ukraine and just want their cheap gas to flow. Current media attention makes it much harder for European leaders to just hold some post factum Normandy-format-or-whatever "peace" talks (giving Russia more and more Ukrainian territory in the process) without some level of condemnation from their electorate. > Just as I don't understand the point of NATO's eastwards expansion, which, in turn, makes the Russians nervous. If the European countries are worried by the military buildup along Russia's western border, surely it must be easy to empathise with the Russian worry about Nato including more Eastern European countries and being able to deploy missiles there, which can be used both defensively and offensively and which puts Moscow within 5-minute reach, or something like that. This is the narrative that Russia is pushing, but it makes no sense if you think about it for a second. NATO could have accepted Ukraine long ago (they had 7 years to do that even after the last war), if it just wanted to deploy missiles here. It seems like NATO goal is to not accept Ukraine (and Georgia) for as long as possible without stating this straight up (in order not to discourage peoples of these countries from pro-Western course, I guess). In fact, joining NATO was very unpopular in Ukraine until Putin's actions changed that.

azangru 5y ago
> This is the narrative that Russia is pushing, but it makes no sense if you think about it for a second. I have two questions about this, and I am asking honestly, because I don't understand any of this shit. One, if NATO had no intention of accepting Ukraine and Georgia, why wouldn't it (or whichever countries are responsible) commit to this as Russia wants it to. That would defang Russia's false narrative about NATO expansion. And the other, if you are offering an argument from a counterfactual (NATO could have accepted Ukraine long ago, as you say), why didn't Russia, if it intended to devour Ukraine, do so seven years ago when Ukraine was at its weakest? Arguably, both Ukraine has become a tougher nut to crack since then, and the international community has agreed on how best to punish Russia if this happens again.