This is a biggish deal, when you consider how airlines in the northern hemisphere rely heavily on trans-Arctic routes.
A well regarded OSINT person who worked on the Middle East conflicts:
I’m more worried that he’ll nuke Kyiv and then say “I nuked part of Russia, and that’s ok”.
Maybe we need to get new countries!
And it looks like journalists are starting to be snatched in Russia
Soma
4020
So this is what it feels like back in the 60s and 70s when the threat of a nuclear war is real.
I agree that capitulation now is devastating in mid term. It is a green light for Putin to invade any non-Nato countries. To get over the short term hump (which is huge), IMO the whole world needs to send a message to Russia that Ukrainian self defence is not an existential threat to Russia. And that Putin alone, not the Russia people, is putting all of the world in danger of nuclear war. Hopefully they get the message and get rid of Putin, or at least the Russian military is sane enough to get rid of him.
Very helpful, Senator, thanks so much.
It was the 80’s too, if not more so (despite Cuba). They were testing air raid sirens in my village in the UK on a monthly basis, distributing information on television and through the post on how to build a fallout shelter (“they” being the government) and mysteriously or not at least two films were on national TV, one was called “Threads” and the other was a US one whose title I forget. They were both about a nuclear attack on a city and dramatised the consequences. I was about thirteen I think. This was when the Soviet Union successfully invaded Afghanistan (and I suppose that meant it was a bit nearer the Middle East’s oil as well as its own).
antlers
4024
Much earlier in the thread, I linked to a Twitter thread from a Russian emigre analyst that outlined Russia’s strategic objectives in Ukraine, and they still seem within reach for Putin: a Ukraine with a loose federation of mostly autonomous provinces, where Russsian-speaking eastern provinces have a veto on the central government’s actions.
He thinks that under such a system, impetus for sanctions against Russsia over Ukraine would fade away eventually.
His tactics for getting there would include ethnic-cleansing of Ukrainian-speakers in the east, overwhelming western Ukraine with refugees.
Of course you would expect this message.
Vesper
4026
I grew up in the 80s (I’m 46), and this whole situation is so surreal. I haven’t had nuclear war fears in my head for a long long time. It’s like everyone forgot about Russia for 40 years while we were distracted by terrorist threats. I know it’s not identical to the USSR in the 80s, but this is a sense of nostalgia I do not enjoy.
It’s almost as if he’s never seen such a thing before. Oh, wait…
Right there with you, and only slightly your senior. This has literally kept me up at night, although the rational side of me “knows” not to be too worried.
Guap
4029
Good luck to him man. Also, appreciate your viewpoint in this thread.
I believe that is from Kharkiv, they look like the same type of vehicles in the video I linked to upthread.
Might explain why there are video’s of their special forces in Kharkiv sans transport.
