Oh I completely agree that Putin has no part in that future. He needs to go one way or another.
As for the latter point; I’m merely suggesting that throwing a nation into famine and blocking their access to Western media, entertainment, journalism, et al, will work against us far more than it will work for us. We do not want to isolate other populations; that has never worked in our favor. We do not want their only source of news to be Russian state-run media.
We don’t need them being told every day that their ongoing misery is being caused by the United States and European Union. That type of propaganda will work wonders in turning the Russian people further against the West, and will only strengthen Putin’s hold on power.
Guap
5747
Oh no! What will we do without that bastion of fair and unbiased reporting, RT?
KevinC
5748
Breitbart to fill the gap!
In some ways, maybe. But consider how it should have played out, if we are talking Realpolitik as classically practiced. Ukraine makes noises about joining NATO or the EU. Russia says, ahem, not so fast. All the parties get together and work out some sort of deal involving demilitarized areas, diplomatic agreements, guarantees, processes for mediating disputes. But that didn’t happen. Instead, Russia jumped the queue direct to invasion.
tl;dr, when one side really isn’t interested in playing by a set of rules, those rules are not that useful.
Possibly, sure. But where is that line? Any sanctions will hurt the general population, or at least, any sanctions that will have any teeth. Nothing is stopping the regime right now from framing things as the fault of the West. I’m sure that’s exactly what they are doing. Given magical powers, it would be great to find the point where more is too much, but that’s unfortunately going to be a guessing game.
Then we just need to keep electing Trump! Problem solved!
Assume the US and the West continue to provide weapons and supplies to Ukraine and continue to apply extensive sanctions.
How long it will take before Russia withdraws it forces to pre 2022 invasion borders.
- Less than one month
- 1-3 months
- 3-6 months
- 6-12 months
- 1-3 years
- over 3 years
Europe kept trying that and Russia kept poisoning people in their own countries. Germany bent over backwards to foster good will and be the opposite of threatening.
Fostering good will does not work.
I really want NATO to declare a no-fly zone over Russia, even if it is stupid.
What the fuck will Putin do? Send more tank convoys to run out of fuel in Poland?
Putin has played his hand, and unless this is a MASTER bluff, I don’t think they hold many cards.
What would the Russian response to a no-fly zone be? Fly the planes? knowing they will get shot down?
What did they do in Syria when the U.S. killed a bunch o Russians in airstrikes?
Nothing, they ain’t got shit.
Again, not advocating this, but just imagine.
Not gonna lie I’m legit terrified of this.
there’s a different thread for that now.
SAMs stuck in the mud, unmanned because their soldiers ran out of food?
To me, this invasion has only shown one thing. Weakness.
Russia is weak, their army is weak, their economy is weak.
What shit do they have?
I don’t think we have reached the point yet with this yet, but at what point does the world say… Putin has to go.
And if that point comes sooner rather than later, what the fuck does Russia have?
In case anyone wonders why Ukrainians don’t want to be under Russian rule ever again. Most might think Chernobyl, but what often goes unmentioned is the ethnic cleansing and genocide of 5 million Ukrainians by Stalin:
Holodomor - Wikipedia.
You can bet that if Russia takes over, they will strip that country bare of every resource and crop they have to feed Russian industry at the expense of the Ukrainian population.
KevinC
5759
What will be do when we start shooting down Russian aircraft? Probably not nothing. There’s a separate thread for this sort of fantasy, though.
I think all of the Ukraine airspace is vulnerable to SAM emplacements located entirely in Russia. For what that is worth.
About 6,000 nuclear warheads.
There is a thread for this.
The west has played along with Putin and turned a blind eye at every opportunity and kept the Russian populace as ‘enriched’ as it probably could. This approach has achieved nothing except embolden Putin further. Blatant state sanctioned assassinations on political rivals (even inside NATO) go unnoticed or uncared for within Russia regardless of what the west has to say about it. So I feel the sway ‘western media’ has had over the populace of Russia has demonstrably been completely insufficient to affect any sort of worthwhile change, and that it is unlikely that it suddenly will now. My honest opinion is that the Anonymous hacking of TV stations has probably had more impact here than the past couple of decades of western media influence.
Even if the sanction approach doesn’t yield results, I’m kinda OK with not doing business with war criminals. Even if my gas bill is going to be higher.
You beat me to it.
I remember the olden times when making a Monty Python allusion was considered something that would inevitably crash the forums, but I guess that was before Discourse. :-)
Let’s not forgot shooting down a planeload of civilians, including a bunch of NATO citizens, and refusing to turn over anyone responsible.
That they won’t use, because of MAD.
(Never mind.)
Also, too: there is a thread for this stuff.
