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I'm in Ukraine right now, where I've been living for the past few years (Canadian Citizen born and raised in Toronto). This is completely overblown nonsense. T

• darkarmani 5y ago
  > (confirmed by President Zelensky today -- said we will not be fighting Russia head-on). Therefore no more Ukrainian body bags, which is great news, though not the ending we wanted. Oops. Your comment aged really poorly in one day. It turns out Russia wanted all of Ukraine and you are fighting them head-on.
• swagasaurus-rex 5y ago
  Unconvincing. Why would Putin stop now?
  • _xnmw 5y ago
    Why would Putin want to annex a country full of people who hate him? Donetsk and Luhansk and Crimea had 70%+ ethnic Russians with pro-Russia sentiment. Everywhere else in Ukraine he is hated, there's no way he will want to expand into territory that jeopardizes his own stability.
    • swagasaurus-rex 5y ago
      Why wouldn't he?
      • vetinari 5y ago
        Why would he feed another country? Crimea is a strategic territory, LNR/DNR protect access to RF borders, and both are home of ethnic Russians, but the rest? Only throwing away good money. In his strategic interest he would let the West to continue throwing finances here.
        • yakshaving_jgt 5y ago
          So… Anything to say to this now?
        • yakshaving_jgt 5y ago
          Well, no, not really. It's plausible given his rhetoric that he'd be interested in all of Novorossiya.
          • vetinari 5y ago
            He would need support of local population for that. And if locals want it, why not? Right for self-determination, after all. At least that was the excuse when USSR/Yugoslavia/etc were broken down. But it is not that simple; any such territory would be a drain on Russian economy. For now, it is tactical advantage to keep Europe and US to drain theirs here. (One of reasons, why opolchentsi stopped before Mariupol few years ago).
            • ncmncm 5y ago
              Ukraine is has fantastically fertile crop land, and Russia is today a net importer of food. Food has never been a trivial concern for Russia or Russians.
              • vetinari 5y ago
    • slezyr 5y ago
      Why not? Nothing stops him.
    • yakshaving_jgt 5y ago
      Why? I suppose you missed the speech he gave last night?
      • afterburner 5y ago
        Could be a diplomatic tactic, threaten greater destruction so people are relieved when he takes less.
    • jcranmer 5y ago
      Unhappy populations can be dealt with sufficient application of repression. Or, worst case scenario, genocide--history has shown that the international community is extremely reluctant to do anything about genocide other than moralize after the fact about how wrong it was. I mean, there's already precedent for Russian genocide against Ukrainians...
      • celticninja 5y ago
        I think the bigger issue for Putin is his army and his support. That will beging to fade if he goes into an area that is not supportive and then Russian soldiers start dying. It's all good 'capturing' territory without a loss of life, but are the Russian people going to put up with dead soldiers just for them to occupy Kyiv?
      • Mikeb85 5y ago
        No one in the modern era has attempted to take a country with a population that's 1/3 of the invading country. If he incorporated Ukraine, that's 40 million angry citizens. It would absolutely be the end of him especially because most Russians see Ukrainians as brothers. He justifies Luhansk, Donbass and Crimea because of the 2014 revolution and they fact they were always culturally Russian. Edit - I should also add that it's in Ukraine's interest to simply let these regions go. Prior to 2014, Ukrainian elections always flip-flopped between pro-Russian and pro-Western factions... Now that most of the pro-Russian support no longer votes in Ukrainian elections (due to being part of Russian or breakaway), Ukrainian politics are almost entire pro-Western.
        • jcranmer 5y ago
          > No one in the modern era has attempted to take a country with a population that's 1/3 of the invading country. Saudi Arabia invading Yemen. Syria invading Lebanon is I think around the ⅓ mark. Iraq invading Iran--note that Iran was the larger country then. All of these are conflicts that were intended to induce suzerainty if not outright conquest, and all of these are undeniably in what you'd call the "modern era". Although I'll note that "modern era" is usually given as since about ~1789, which means we can throw in all of the wonderful aggression conflicts that make up World War II, such as Germany attempting to incorporate the populated bits of the USSR into its own territory, after killing off the current inhabitants of course. > they fact they were always culturally Russian. IIRC, he claims that Ukrainians are themselves no different from Russians, which means this gives him casus belli to incorporate all of Ukraine on the same grounds.
    • sysmet 5y ago
      Seems you are living in the Disneyland.
    • _ph_ 5y ago
      For the "why" you would ask him, but didn't he stress in his speech yesterday, that he considers the whole Ukraine a part of Russia? So yes, if the Russian troops do nothing beyond settling the status, it might be good for the local population. But what if not? Why would he need such a huge army just to consolidate those regions, why army in the Belarus? I guess we will see what happens (and I wished things stopped where they are now).
    • pqb 5y ago
      For money, of course. Donetsk region is full of good quality coal and benefits coming from controlling the Black Sea are definitely very tempting. > Why would Putin want to annex a country full of people who hate him? Please change your optics. People never matter in Russia/Soviet Union. Even, if there will be 70-80% of people who are dreadful opponents to "new goverment" then what they would do? Take it to the street? Strike? Please remind yourself how it looked in the Kazakhstan in early January 2022 (you will get shot, just because you left your home to buy some food) and in Belarus 2021 (mass protests, thousands of people being thrown in jail for no reason, very often beaten, many found dead there). Coup d'état? Poor joke, especially if we look at the latest events in Africa (for example Mali), where armed Russia's Wagner forces helped to take over the whole country. Edit: As a person who lives in Central Europe, your question made me sad, because it means western mass-media is crap these days - they cannot explain a very silly thing why this ongoing conflict for 8+ years takes place.
      • deleted 5y ago
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      • giantrobot 5y ago
        > As a person who lives in Central Europe, your question made me sad, Reading the GP's other comments they're either a "useful idiot" (in KGB parlance) or a Russian-supporting astroturfer. There has been a lot of coverage of Russia's actions in Ukraine in "the West" for the past 8 years.
        • avgcorrection 5y ago
          This isn’t a constructive comment. There isn’t a point to accusing people of being propagandists or <insert nefarious Soviet intelligence term here> unless you have proof.
    • baybal2 5y ago
      > Donetsk and Luhansk and Crimea had 70%+ ethnic Russians with pro-Russia sentiment. The absolute majority sans the single digit percentage of ethnic Russians hate Russia with passion. And I am not even talking about ethnic Russians within Ukraine, but Russia itself. Russian Far East very seriously wanted to seccede. South Russians don't count themselves as the same ethnicity as Russians living in the Moscow at all. People in Urals, besides attempting at Urals Republic in early nineties, are still very unhappy about Urals, and Western Siberia being the poorest part of Russia, while their resources allow Muscovites bathe in Champagne. All other ethnic republics will secede in no time as well if given the opportunity. Russia will be the next Yugoslavia. This is what we actually need to be talking about Russia losing its oil/gas, or Putin getting assasinated, or just any major crisis = Yugo with nukes, and a civil war 10 times worse.
    • dragonwriter 5y ago
      > Why would Putin want to annex a country full of people who hate him? Because distracting people with a project to restore the greatness of Imperial Russia, repudiating the losses it suffered at the hands of hostile foreign powers (and even Soviet leaders—he’s blamed, e.g., Lenin for “creating” Ukraine from “Russian” territory and Stalin for giving Ukraine control of additional “Russian” territory) is Putin’s central political strategy right now, and he’s already laid out the public case for why Ukraine ought to be Russian on that basis.
      • toyg 5y ago
        That's definitely a factor. Another factor is the refusal to make NordStream2 operational. Gazprom must be free of Ukrainian influence, and if it can't be North it will be South - the spice must flow, and so does the gas.
    • marshray 5y ago
      Putin has repeatedly made clear his (weird) belief that NATO will base hypersonic nuclear missiles in a free Ukraine. Yesterday he claimed Ukraine will develop its own nukes. These claims would suggest that Putin will stop at nothing short of total regime change in Kiev.
  • betwixthewires 5y ago
    Because this isn't Risk. They don't care about capturing all territory within a state's borders, they care about a defensible border position. It's strategic.
    • mcguire 5y ago
      How does moving the border 100 or 150 km west make it more defensible?
      • toyg 5y ago
        It depends on the geography, of course. Tbh, I bet the Russian generals would dearly like to reach the Dnieper.
      • betwixthewires 5y ago
        The same reason the Himalayas are the border between China and India, the swiss and Italians border in the alps, the US and mexico border along the Rio Grande, and the Arab countries have foggy borders. It's the reason you see ethnic groups bounded by geographic artifacts. You want a natural barrier as a defense. You expand or contract to an easier to defend position. You'll note nations with artificial borders such as latitude lines are at peace with one another, and ones that aren't, such as several African nations who's borders were decided by the French and English are in constant strife and flux.
        • kbart 5y ago
          Many countries in Europe do not have geographical barriers, so do you say they don't have a right to exist?
          • toyg 5y ago
            I think his (perfectly reasonable) point is that, in the long run, a natural border might make it easier to establish and maintain a legal border, and will likely favour internal cohesion by forcing connections to go certain ways. Obviously it is not a prerequisite for statehood, which is a complex construct that goes beyond territorial claims (since Woodrow Wilson at the very least, in legal terms).
• slezyr 5y ago
  Yea, that's a bullshit. Ukrainian-Ukrainian here. Russians now claim that they will "protect" the entire Donetsk and Lugansk regions and expand if needed to do so. People die right now MORE than in previous "peaceful" times. They already fucking shelled a kindergarten, school, and killed a civilian (was a rarity before).
  • _xnmw 5y ago
    The President of Ukraine and all official channels say they do NOT believe a full-scale invasion will happen. Only America says it will happen. We lost Donetsk and Luhansk a long time ago. It's gone now. Hopefully this will end now.
    • tokai 5y ago
      >We lost Donetsk and Luhansk Not all of it.
      • _xnmw 5y ago
        I refer to the cities, not the whole oblast.
        • tokai 5y ago
          Well the republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, and Putin refer to the whole oblasts, so it makes your analysis a bit nonsensical.
        • trenchgun 5y ago
          Russia recognized those republics defined by the area in their constitution: ie. whole oblasts. https://twitter.com/JakeCordell/status/1496161279853084677 https://twitter.com/JakeCordell/status/1496161279853084677
          • _xnmw 5y ago
            The assumption is that the actual borders of DNR and LNR will be solved by diplomacy, and Kyiv has hinted that it will try to find a diplomatic solution.
• deleted 5y ago
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• hourislate 5y ago
  >This "live map" makes it seem like there is some kind of war starting. There's nothing of the sort. War started 8 years ago, and this move by Putin last night actually ENDS the war decisively. What a lot of folks in the West don't realize is that Ukrainian soldiers have been at war with Russian Mercenaries and Russian Soldiers since 2014. It's been a slow burn war and every week there have been Ukrainian KIA but it never made the news. We can only hope that you are correct about the war being over but I'm not so sure. My opinion is it will never be over as long as Putin and his mafia are in power. There is just too much at stake for them to hand over power to a new guard because of the hundreds of billions they have stolen from the Russian people. >The rebel-held regions which were backed by Russia have been in constant conflict for 8 years. I don't think anyone believed that the Separatists/Russians in Ukraine were some home grown group. They were funded, supplied, and reinforced with Russian Mercs and Army from the beginning, it's just that the world didn't give a shit because there was too much business going on between Europe and Russia. I still don't believe the West is going to take this or any future aggression seriously, strongly worded disappointments is about all they can muster in the face of evil. NATO and the West are toothless, America has no appetite to take on an enemy like Russia or China and those countries know it. Even now any reaction is just theater without any real consequences. What this means for the future is that it sets a precedent, There are millions of Russians seeded throughout Eastern Europe and it leaves the door open to separatism. Taiwan is also fucked, the Chinese will take it in a day and the USA won't do a single thing. Just saying, always hoping I'm wrong.
  • zie 5y ago
    Because Taiwan has such a large export of stuff the USA desperately wants/needs, I'm not sure you are right that the USA will let China take Taiwan. See TSMC for one example :) What does the USA need/want from Russia, other than for them to stop being antagonistic against the USA? Nothing that I can see.
    • mywittyname 5y ago
      Okay, so China promises no interruption in supply if there's no American intervention.
• martythemaniak 5y ago
  This is a really bad reading of the situation and you won't have to wait very long to see why. Putin did not go through this massive hoopla just to get a small strip of land. Yesterday's moves were just the first step. Within a few days they'll escalate by doing something like claiming the entire regions, by staging a false flag, Triggering an insurrection outside the regions etc. Once they have threatred their way into making it look as if Ukraine is the aggressor, they'll move in widely. I don't know where he'll end up, but the ultimate objective is the humiliation of the west and subjugation of Ukraine. What I think you'll see is a wide areal campaign destroying most of Ukraines military equipment, a take over of the entire black sea coast making Ukraine landlocked. Finally there'll be a "peace" treaty making Ukraine a substantially smaller landlocked country, forcing them to demilitarize, pay tribute etc.
  • _xnmw 5y ago
    > Putin did not go through this massive hoopla just to get a small strip of land. He achieved his political objectives by just threatening invasion, without actually invading. An actual full-scale invasion is something nobody wants, least of all most ordinary Russians who have relatives in Ukraine. > you won't have to wait very long to see why I'd bet you on it if you set me a date. Westerners have been raising the alarm about a potential Russian invasion since time immemorial.
    • martythemaniak 5y ago
      I'm down for a friendly or small sum bet. You'll see a major escalation in about a week. Russians will be firing missiles and artillery and dropping bombs in Ukraine proper in March. I certainly hope I lose.
      • _xnmw 5y ago
        You're on! $25 USD by TransferWise. There will be no further Russian military incursions into Ukraine proper by March 31st, except perhaps some shuffling around of the Donetsk/Luhansk border. Note I'm not expecting Putin to stop playing chess, he will never stop with his political power moves, he might blockade Odessa, but there will be no bloodshed. Mark my words. I look forward to peace in Ukraine, for the first time in 8 years. My email is in my profile.
• giantrobot 5y ago
  Dude Putin said today Russia recognizes the separatists' claimed borders of Donetsk and Luhansk which extend far beyond the borders the separatists actually control. Which means unless Ukraine decides to cede a shitload of territory to Russi...I mean the totally grass roots and not at all Russian run separatist governments, Russia will fight with Ukraine.
• Scarblac 5y ago
  Russia recognises the independence of the whole Donbas and Luhansk, not just the parts held by the rebels. And now they're going yo take them by force.
• mcguire 5y ago
  "The rebel-held regions which were backed by Russia have been in constant conflict for 8 years. There's nothing new here on this map. Putin's decision yesterday to make it officially Russian-protected instead of shadow-backed actually de-escalates tensions and finally ends the 8-year long conflict." How so? Doesn't it just turn a pro-Russian insurgency into a pro-Ukrainian insurgency? In other words, the "insurgents" and the "legitimate local militias" just switch places. "Now that Donetsk and Luhansk are officially Russian-backed, the Ukrainian army will no longer attempt to keep recapturing it (confirmed by President Zelensky today -- said we will not be fighting Russia head-on). Therefore no more Ukrainian body bags, which is great news, though not the ending we wanted." As long as Putin stops at the borders of Donetsk and Luhansk. And, by the way, it's good there are no Ukrainians in Donetsk and Luhansk.
  • throwawayay02 5y ago
    It should be good news for everyone unless Russia makes a full-scale invasion (which seem very unlikely), no? By everyone I mean every average, civilian person. All of them should want peace, no matter if their passport says Ukraine or "X Republic of the Russian Federation".