Its easy to say that but you have to look at the bigger picture.

It's easy to say "just punish the government / the oligarchs", but as most Westerners know, these people have become extraordinarily adept at hiding their money and distributing their assets. So it is very difficult indeed to target them per-se, hence you need to make it difficult to move money/assets around, sell assets and gain new money/assets.

You also need to look at the even bigger problem. How do we stop Russia attacking Ukraine ?

Nobody wants World War 3. Even the Americans who are usually keen to test out their latest toys are being remarkably disciplined about sitting on their hands.

So, you don't want to engage in a direct fight with the Russians, what's left on the table ?

Diplomacy ? Well, they've tried and are trying, but not much light at the end of that tunnel as of yet.

So your only option left is to accept that running a war needs two things, money and supplies. If both of those dry up then its only a matter of time before the war grinds to a halt too.

Hence you end up doing things that affect banks, the central bank, transport and logistics.

Regrettably its not just about targeting the military and the government, you have to target the supporting structures too (food, parts, consumables), hence you need to go big and go fast on sanctions.

Yes your average Russian will get caught up in the sanctions. Yes it will be difficult and unpleasant for families.

But frankly the alternative, full-blown war across Europe and the potential for nuclear bombs being used is unfathomably worse for everyone both inside Russia and outside.

Small point but this isn't exactly true, especially among US policymakers and media people. All you need to do here is read the chorus of people in official / corporate media going "nuclear war would be bad, but [...]". You can also rewind to the enormous shit-fit Washington types threw last summer when Biden pulled out of Afghanistan, or go even further back to the Iraq war.

Washington is full of chickenhawk warmongers dying to send other people's children into battle, consequences be damned. It's the rare thing that is really bipartisan, too. A lot of people's careers depend on support for World War III, so they find a way to be okay with it.

[0] https://twitter.com/edwardnorton/status/1498025965875875844?... [1] https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB10014.html

Specifically which parts of that post do you take issue with?

One of many terrifying elements of our times.

It seems Putin sprung this on the rest of Russia as a surprise decision. (Of course the signs were there.) Did he bother to get the support of the oligarchs or anyone else first? It’s not at all clear he has anyone’s support; he just has their obedience.

Morally speaking, this looks rather simple: it’s Putin’s big mistake. To the extent that others failed to stop the invasion, it was by failing to influence him. But a paranoid and isolated dictator isn’t easily influenced.

Punishing other Russians for this, particularly outside Russia and Ukraine, often has no purpose and is a form of cruelty.

By reducing the capacity for wider war.

I think this summarizes it, without a focus on war capacity specifically, but the impact on war capacity flows directly from this:

https://mobile.twitter.com/DmitryOpines/status/1499157917399...

I have a lot more sympathy for the people hurt in Russsia now. Russians, whether they have been brainwashed into supporting Putin or not, are in for a bad time in the coming years.

If you aim at the Russian industrial complex (which produces a lot of the arms), and the government with sanctions then obviously you will it the people too. But that's not as bad as a shooting war (or a nuclear war) would be. And it doesn't rule either out.

If anything we should be encouraging Russians to flee the country.

It has been for the last 20 years or so.

We may get it by mistake. A wider war in Europe is all too likely. The NATO countries and the EU are shipping large amounts of military supplies into Ukraine. One story mentions 17 US widebody cargo aircraft per day going into Poland. This is a real threat to Russia's attacks, because the supplies include the good anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons. That leaves the Russian army fighting as infantry against a much larger armed population, a long, bloody slog. Unless Russia can cut off outside supplies, there's no path to victory.

It's all too likely that some attempt to attack Ukranian supply lines will reach over the border into a NATO country. Just some Russian pilot in Ukraine in a fight making a turn too slowly could result in overflying Polish territory. Where the air defenses are ready to shoot down anything hostile.

Re-read how WWI started. Everybody had mutual-defense treaties, and one minor event set it all off.

2 hours ago: "Putin says sanctions introduced on Russia are equal to a "declaration of war"" - CNN.

> "But thank God it has not come to that," he added.

The bit he added at the end is important.

For now, we are on a knife edge, and the number of refugees is mounting steadily. I expect we'll be in the millions by the end of next week.

For those who say beat the war drums, punish them all, just so we can make it harder on the authoritarians and oligarchs - are you ready to enlist in the Ukraine militia or is that too much to ask?

It seems a little too facile to be willing to put others lives on the line when you are not willing to risk your own.

Ín a world without nukes they would be bombed too right now, because wars have a tendency of doing that regardless of who fights.

Anything less let's Putin get away once again. And right now every country in Europe, and their citizens, are sick of Putin getting away every single time.

I do have a personal stake in this. We're the only western neighbour of Russia that is not in NATO and has not been attacked by them after the fall of Soviet Union. We're basically next, and it wouldn't be the first time Russia would "defend" itself by driving tanks here. I heard enough stories from my grandparents who had to flee due to them. I thought that it's a thing of the past, but it very clearly is not.

That would be too easy - there needs to be war reparations paid to Ukraine too - although nothing will bring back the lost lives.

So what about - yes, sanctions lifted, and the 300 billion Russian state stashed away is given to Ukraine.

Moldova?

Finland is the only land border sharing non nato country left.

It's very influential book in Russia that has influenced their policy goals. It was written in 1997. A lot of it feels rather prescient considering the current world situation, which is likely not a surprise.

What they considered for US was that they should "introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements – extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics"

UK was to be cut off from European politics and Germany should be the new lead of central Europe. Well, UK did distance itself. And up to few weeks ago Germany was the one most against united front against Russia.

There is plenty of other stuff there. Annexation of Ukraine is just one of them (alongside annexation of Belarus which they have de facto achieved). Annexation of Finland is one of the goals too. Hence I have no doubts that it would happen at some point.

i think it’s unlikely, too, but if the past few weeks have taught us anything, it’s that russia likes to repeat its past conquests

Since the US is also directly funding the Russian’s ability to wage war in Ukraine, would you advocate for the US and other Western countries who continue to buy Russian Oil to sanction themselves?

In essence it is to maintain some leverage, on top of the usual practical and selfish reasons.

In addition Americans are notoriously sensitive to the price of gas (in a similar vein the joke goes that Russia has had two price spikes in Vodka, first in 1917 and second in 1991, maybe we'll get third one soon). If it rises too much they might start to oppose the whole being uppity to Russians thing going on now, which would be bad.

At the same time you excuse rich countries such as the US or Germany who actively choose to continue to buy oil from authoritarian regimes even as they invade our allies - simply because buying oil elsewhere would be expensive and politically inconvenient.

I don’t understand your logic.

Remember, the sanctions against average Russians will absolutely result in shortages of food, medicine and other essential supplies. Many everyday Russians will likely starve or die from these sanctions. This isn’t about how quickly they can replace their old iPhones.

You are completely wrong here. The sanctions are against Russia to cripple their war machine, not the Russian people.

And Russia, with its immense natural resources, could easily afford to care and feed its citizens regardless of the relationship with the west, if only their oligarchs hadn't dilapidated the country's wealth for their personal gain. So it's hardly the west's fault that the Russian government steals from its own people (literally) and spends whatever wealth it has left bombing innocent people in Ukraine instead of spending it caring for its people.

Russia is not the victim here, and Russian people starving is not the west's fault but it's Russia's own fault and their leaders' fault. Period.

Oligarchs and authoritarians in Russia have options and resources to weather the storm. Many everyday Russians live close to hand to mouth and they will suffer. I don’t accept the decision to dehumanize an entire nation’s citizens for the acts of their authoritarian elite.

The Russian kings and knights and rooks and bishops will be fine. It is the pawns or plebs who will suffer the most.

They are innocent in my eyes, having only committed the crime of being born within the wrong arbitrary political boundaries.

It's not though. The west doesn't come to Russia and shove their grubby hands into the bank accounts of ordinary Russians to steal their money, resources and taxes, and starve them to death. Russia does that to their citizens and bares the sole responsibility of these actions, not the west. Like come on, Russia can choose to stop the wear at any time and the sanctions would be lifted but they're not doing that.

>I don’t accept the decision to dehumanize an entire nation’s citizens for the acts of their authoritarian elite.

So we should just let Russia invade whatever country it wants and kill their way through Europe because otherwise ordinary Russian citizens might suffer? What about Ukrainian citizens and their suffering? What about the poor pensioners in Eastern Europe who won't be able to afford the increased energy bills due to the war and might die because instead of buying medicine, now have to pay insane energy bills? What about the European taxpayers who will now have to pay increased costs to house and care for millions of displaced Ukrainian refugees? So Russia and Russians are not the only ones paying the price for Putin's actions, all of Europe is.

By your logic, you would have let Hitler exterminate an entire continent because fighting Germany would have been tough on the innocent people of Germany for the acts of their leader (not that it wasn't, but Hitler had to be defeated and that was the price). Except that now, to defeat Putin, instead of going to war with Russia and have millions of people needlessly die on both sides, we can bankrupt Russia and cripple it from the inside, and have minimal casualties on both sides (Europeans will also suffer from the war and these sanctions but the important thing is we save Ukraine and as many Ukrainians as we can, as I doubt Putin will ever see a trial in the Hague for his war crimes).

- A few weeks ago it was Canada freezing bank accounts of their political opponents.

- The US still allows for civil forfeiture of arbitrary assets with no presumption of innocence or conventional due process.

- A little while back Cyprus arbitrarily stole private funds from innocent civilians who had committed no crime - just because the gov said they needed it to bail out their bankers

- The EU has had negative nominal interest rates for some time stealing money from savers for the benefit of central bank policy

- Nearly all western governments have had negative real interest rates on savings for some time. This is a conscious policy to inflate their currencies through money printing in order to more easily manage their national debts.

I didn’t read that from OP’s post and I don’t understand what exactly you are claiming here.

Do Russian oligarchs steal from the bank accounts of ordinary Russians or is there another mechanism of theft?

Any time West puts sanctions on oligarchs Putin makes a law so they can pay less taxes, meaning ordinary people keep paying taxes for them

If I recall correctly the government took trillions from ordinary citizens to pay out the banking elite as a thank you for the bankers and rating agencies committing rampant fraud in MBS and CDOs - all while none of them were ever charged with crimes and none went to jail. Many bankers even received massive bonuses from taxpayer-funded bailout funds as well.

For example the city of Montreal is notorious for similar corruption in their road construction industry. Other cities are known to operate with similar collusion, though it isn’t as widely reported.

If Nancy Pelosi was Russian we would certainly call her an Oligarch as it is widely known she has a net worth of $200 million+ on a salary of a few hundred thousand per year.

She gained her enormous wealth by feeding insider information, which she gained from her privileged position, to her husband, so he could insider trade and front-run the American people stealing from their 401ks and other investment accounts.

Insider trading is only a crime for regular Americans, not congress or senators. It is perfectly legal for them to insider trade all day long. Guess who wrote those laws?

Also, Pelosi isn’t the only American politician who abuses their power by insider trading - only the most successful.

No, absolutely not but that is a false dichotomy and I think you also know that. This isn’t a simple binary choice between doing nothing and imposing broad-stroke sanctions on every single citizen of Russia.

One simple first step could be for the US and Germany and the rest of Western Europe to simply stop buying oil from Russia and thereby cut off further direct funding for Putin’s war. We know that sanctions on regular citizens hurt regular citizens while cutting off oil purchases directly impedes the Russian state’s ability to wage war. Which do you think would be more effective?

As for increasing energy costs on Europeans and also Ukrainians who I understand are paying up to half their take-home wages to heat their homes, I think the easiest course of action would be for Western governments to directly subsidize energy prices in the short term while simultaneously cutting fuel and carbon taxes on those affected.

I don’t agree with your assessment of my logic that I would let Hitler exterminate anyone and I would appreciate it if we could keep the discussion civil.

I am not your enemy. I want this war to end ASAP as much as you do. We are simply advocating different strategies to achieve the same goal - peace.

Again, the west is not attacking Russian citizens, but the Russian government. We can't change the fact that ordinary Russians are subject to the Russian government and therefore will also suffer to a degree no matter how you try to slice the sanctions. Especially when Russia would rather destroy European food rather than give it to its starving people.[1] So if Russia is actively harming its own people how can we expect to protected them if their own government won't?

You can't just keep repeating the trope that the west is actively harming the Russians citizens when its their own government doing it. Yeah, living in a corrupt country with shitty leaders is bad for the people living there but it's not the west's responsibility to improve it for them. Ultimately, it's up to the Russian people to revolt against their government and fight for a better future, same how other countries did it. The price of freedom is always high.

[1] https://youtu.be/nrLwLuWv7rA?t=380

That doesn’t mean I advocate arbitrarily punishing innocent civilians for the actions of their rulers - especially when those rulers are proven to be authoritarians who can and will ruthlessly crush dissent from their populace.

If you read my other comments on this thread you will see I shared some ideas that I believe would both be more targeted towards Russia’s elite, while also bringing more direct pain to defund Putin’s ability to wage war.

Namely the west should cut off Russia’s supply of money by banning the purchase of Russian oil.

I realize this action will hurt regular Ukrainians and other Innocent Europeans which is why I also advocate for direct subsidies to reduce the cost of energy for these affected populations, paid for by western governments.

TL;DR: One strategy we might try to make it harder for the elites to wage war would be to stop giving them money to wage war while at the same time temporarily subsidizing energy costs for populations affected by the oil sanctions.

I don't think that's sufficient. You mentioned the collapse of the ruble, this is an outcome that heavily effects Russians but also directly effects the ability for the war to be financed. In the end, you cannot separate the two, in order to apply enough pressure to one you must invariably harm the other.

I also think it is silly to argue that cutting Russia off from this direct subsidy from the west would be insufficient to have chilling effect on Putin’s war - especially when we haven’t even tried. How do you know it is insufficient?

I am bemoaning the fact that there IS at least one precision nuke that would single-handedly hit 30% of Russia’s GDP, cause direct pain to Russia’s oligarchs and elites, and immediate decimate Putin’s war machine - all while doing much less damage to ordinary Russians than broad indiscriminate economic sanctions.

I am bemoaning the fact that this tactical nuke we could drop on Russia’s oil & gas sector is clear and obvious to most everyone involved but would result in economic and political blowback for the west so everyone is burying their head in the sand and pretending the option to stop buying oil from authoritarians who attack our allies doesn’t exist.

I have yet to hear a good argument for why broad economic sanctions against an entire nation and its people are more targeted or more effective than just not buying oil or gas from Russia’s elites and stop directly subsidizing Putin’s war machine.

Perhaps someone here can enlighten me?

What is happening to the Russian people is tragic, but it pales in comparison to what the average Ukrainian is experiencing (shortages of food, medicine, water and basic shelter, psychological terror, maimings, deaths).

We have no other means to put pressure on Putin save arming Ukraine or attacking Russia.

We are going to feel a lot of pain anyway and more the longer that this goes on. Gas prices are already through the roof. Ukraine and Russia are both major grain exporters, meaning this war will have a devastating impact around the world this year. We should be doing everything we can to make sure it stops sooner rather than later even if it means more pain now.

If we cut off this market it would cripple Putin’s war in Ukraine much more effectively than arming Ukrainians on the ground.

Add in energy subsidies to affected customers in need of economic support to offset the inevitable increase in oil/gas prices in the short-term and we can blunt the worst of the pain on regular Europeans.

Why is this proposal not even worth considering? Broad economic sanctions are most definitely not the only option to pressure Putin.

Except, even without sanctions on oil & gas, no one is buying the oil.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/03/investing/russia-oil-sanction...

For example 6 days ago The NY Times reported that Shell had stopped buying oil from Russia [0] but that was also fake news.

Shell is now defending their decision to buy 100 metric tons of aural crude from Russia according to multiple reports in the past 24 hours. [1]

Nothing changed, It was all just PR spin to manipulate public opinion. It looks like it worked.

In war the first casualty is the truth.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/28/business/russia-oil-compa...

[1] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/shell-buys-r...

Like I mentioned in the previous post, the main reason is to keep some leverage. It's the biggest financial sanction that can be thrown at them. Essentially all other sanctions were taken, but the last one was kept unused. If Putin escalates against civilians this sanction would likely be used too.

I would like to believe our elected leaders are not so self-serving as to put their political interests above the needs of the Ukrainian people but I’ve seen enough geo—politics in my life that I simply can’t be so naiive.

With one simple decision - banning oil & gas imports - we could devestate Putin’s ability to wage war and it would impose less direct hardship on everyday Russians?

To protect civilians from higher energy costs in Ukraine and EU western governments could temporarily provide direct subsidies.

This seems like an idea worth trying. What am I missing?

If you still don’t get it, go buy DEFCON on Steam and play it a few times.

Sanctioning oil and gas would end a direct war subsidy to Putin. Broad sanctions against the people of Russia don’t do nearly as much to stop the war as simply not buying petroleum-chemicals to fund Putin’s war chest.

The Russian people are no more to blame here than Republicans who voted for George W Bush before he waged a war of aggression and killed 500k Iraqis based on a lie about WMD.

In fact, the Russian people are less responsible than those Republicans since the US is supposed to be a democracy and Americans still have fair elections to vote unpopular candidates out.

The only crime of the Russian people is the accident of being born inside her arbitrary borders.

We should stop dehumanizing and punishing an entire population for the unconscionable actions of their authoritarian leader.

>Yes your average Russian will get caught up in the sanctions. Yes it will be difficult and unpleasant for families.

The guy is mad and made a bad strategic move by starting an unpopular war. This is the opportunity

This looks like a circular argument.

Yeah, only because he's anti-Putin. People who follow internal deals more closely remember how he was marching with slogans "Russia for russians, Moscow for moscovians" and such. He always was very opportunistic in my opinion.

I respect him for what he's done regarding investigations but he's not a president material.

>Good people exist in Russia.

Sure, but being a "good person" does not qualify you as president. No to mention that "good" is subjective. Many people see Putin as a good person.

War, including economic war, commonly involves massive harm to civilians. That includes civilians who oppose the war and are powerless to stop it. If the western powers and their allies could surgically snuff out Putin’s war machine without harm to innocent Russians then they would. Unfortunately that option is not available. So we accept that innocent Russians will suffer as we drain the financial blood from Putin’s war machine.

Instead they chose broad indiscriminate sanctions that, while politically convenient are absolutely devastating to everyday Russian plebs. The Ruble has collapsed leading to hyperinflation on everyday goods the people need to survive.

Many innocent Russians will die directly because of the actions of the west. Their blood will be on our hands.

They will die because of the actions of their own government.

The only crime committed by regular Russians is being born inside an authoritarian regime that pretended to be a democracy for a time. The genie is out of the bottle and Russians know that protesting their government could land them in the Gulag or worse.

Stop playing with people’s lives! Yo have obviously never lived under an authoritarian government. People rising up in a new Arab Spring may sound romantic but it is more likely to end up in many more deaths than overthrowing this givernment.

Elsewhere I advocated for the west banning the purchase of oil along with subsidizing energy prices for affected populations.

You repeatedly ignore my proposal or even explain what is wrong with the idea of de-funding the Russian war machine by no longer giving the Russian government millions of dollars/Euros.

Why won’t you address my core point instead of deflecting and blaming an entire nation’s citizens?

1) Stop buying oil & gas from oligarchs and Russian elites.

The oils stays in Russia and Russians stay warm in winter.

Putin loses billions in foreign currency which he was using to wage war in Ukraine - crippling his war machine virtually overnight.

The elites and government lose 30% of their GDP and this was money that never trickled down to the plebs. It hurts the oligarchs and givernment who receive the revenue and taxes directly.

2) Broad economic sanctions mean everyday Russians can no longer buy food, medicine, clothing, batteries, electronics, shoes, or anything else from abroad.

It hurts the middle-class and working class more than elites.

Did you know for example that the sanctions against Russia include a carve-out protecting Italy’s ability to sell ultra high-end luxury and designer goods?

Do you still think this is about targeting Russian elites?

At this point I don’t blame anyone for sanctioning first then Reviewing later. What is happening in Ukraine is obscene. If there is the smallest possibility that any sanction makes any Russian more likely to protest or question putin it’s worth a go. We can check again in 6 months and see if all are still needed ir likely to be effective.

If the options on the table are a) do nothing, b) launch a military counter-offensive which could lead to use of nuclear weapons and/or a cyber-war with as-yet unknown (but certainly devastating) consequences, or c) use economic measures to deprive Putin of the tax base he needs to fund his war, I choose option C.

I’m willing to consider other options if they are presented.

D) stop directly subsidizing Putin’s war machine by buying Russia’s oil & gas.

That said, even if you believe your suggestion is separate from mine, there's nothing to preclude choosing both C and D.

If solely focusing on Russia's oil exports isn't enough to get the job done, we need to apply economic sanctions across a broader section of Russia's economy, if we're going to act at all.

Clearly the latter is more focused on the Russian government, ends a direct subsidy of our money paying for this war, and has much less direct impact on poor and struggling everyday Russians?

And that's why the broad sanctions. Russian government can always milk population for money, as long as the population has the money. They did it quite a few times in the 20-th century, e.g. rouble was denominated by an order of magnitude in 1961, and by 3 orders of magnitude in 1997. For this reason, focused sanctions not gonna work.

Let’s say that were true. Why then should the west not apply broad sanctions AND include sanctions on Oil & Gas exports as well?

It seems to me that this policy would shut down Putin’s war machine faster than either measure alone.

I suspect the real reason the west chose to exclude oil & gas from other sanctions is the same reason the sanctions include a carve-out for selling Italian luxury goods to Russian elites.

Namely that the west is equally willing to impose pain on the Russian people as it is on Russia’s elites but they are unwilling to take more effective action since it would be politically risky and may impede their chances of re-election - even though it would effectively end the war in Ukraine immediately.

That's exactly what we're doing.

If we ban Russian oil & gas overnight, the markets will freak out and the damage to our economy will be too large. The negotiations to re-route oil & gas across the planet take time. I hope they already made some progress with Iran and Venezuela.

At the very least, that's one of many possibilities of what happened.

Not so fast. Militias are full. You can't even bribe your way in.

Sorry, but this is nonsense analogy. The correct one would be: China attacks Mexico against its will.

If Ukraine wanted to be part of Russia, they would do so via a referendum, just like UK left EU. The referendum would have high turnout and at least 50%+ of population would vote YES, we want to integrate with Russia. That's how things are done when there is a legitimate reason to believe that some country and its residents want such geopolitical change.

"I fail to see why it's a bigger deal than lives lost in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Myanmar, Tigray, Palestine, or any of the other places in recent history where there have been scores of human rights violations"

In terms of tragedy of individuals, it's not "a bigger deal". It's a bigger deal in terms of global security of the western nations and their values. And spare me condescending tone about those values not being ideal or ideally followed - if you have doubts about them then try to change them or relocate to better places - I don't know, maybe to Moscow?

" But if we're really concerned about war with a nuclear power above all else, we shouldn't be poking the bear in its backyard at all "

The bear has entered your backyard.

I agree that the bear shouldn't have been poked for everyone's sake, the Ukrainians most of all. But now that it has, capitulation is not an option for Europe, no more than it was for America wrt Cuba's alignment in the 60s.

There's a school of thought that says capitulation emboldens the attacker. Say Crimea and the whole of Ukraine had been handed over to Russia with no resistance, why would they stop there? Diplomacy fails when the other side misreads your intentions; a seemingly somnulent NATO may wake up to a reconstituted USSR invasion of Poland because Russia is confident fear of nuclear conflict will deter any action. No one wants that.

That is not our choice to make (assuming neither of us is Ukrainian). Our choice is only to cut off support and let Ukraine fight truly alone.

FWIW I don’t think your post should be flagged dead, it is a contrarian opinion but doesn’t break any rules.

This is a complete red herring. They don't want Ukraine to "stay in their orbit," they are colonizers that are fighting against Ukraine's independence. Putin said he doesn't want Ukraine to join NATO. Nobody in NATO is eager to accept Ukraine. Ukraine said they'd stay independent. Now, Putin is saying that Ukraine is essentially Russian, and he's bringing up fake news about genocide and neonazi government.

If you think that Putin will stop at Ukraine, you're sorely mistaken. It's Ukraine now, Georgia right after, and then we shall see.

You do not negotiate with terrorists. We've tried. Ever since Crimea in 2014, the west has been in one large negotiation with Russia, and obviously, nothing worked. At this point, it's all-out everything except actual troops on ground, because it's obvious Putin won't stop unless he's stopped in some way.

He explains exactly how nato has made moves to expand, the puts Russia in a position to respond;

>"I think all the trouble in this case really started in April, 2008, at the nato Summit in Bucharest, where afterward nato issued a statement that said Ukraine and Georgia would become part of nato. The Russians made it unequivocally clear at the time that they viewed this as an existential threat, and they drew a line in the sand. Nevertheless, what has happened with the passage of time is that we have moved forward to include Ukraine in the West to make Ukraine a Western bulwark on Russia’s border. Of course, this includes more than just nato expansion. nato expansion is the heart of the strategy, but it includes E.U. expansion as well, and it includes turning Ukraine into a pro-American liberal democracy, and, from a Russian perspective, this is an existential threat"

You say I don't know why Putin is acting, and then baselessly go on to claim a reason with no support. The idea that all it takes is some strong action, without taking into account the valid objections actual experts have, is ridiculous. This isn't propaganda it's valid foreign policy discussion that many others agree with.

Colonizers? That's a new one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kievan_Rus%27

But even if they did want to "colonize" something they had ancient roots in, they don't have the birthrate to justify it. A total non sequitur.

Georgia right after

Oh, no. Anything but that.

and then we shall see

True. As they say at Davos, "As goes Georgia, so goes Azerbaijan". And then they (at Davos) add a little ominous aside, "...and then we shall see".

troops on ground

You first.

Putin won't stop unless he's stopped in some way

That's true of everything. A falling object also won't stop unless it's stopped in some way. Maybe barring Russian Blues from cat competitions will do the trick. Or maybe starving the poor people of Egypt will wake him up.

Ukraine is not a Russian region that wants to separate, it is a independent democratic country and Putin pretends is part of Russia.

I can also see why Putin wants Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia(he said he wants to restore URSS) but why should we say "bad luck, let him have them and let's buy more gas"

The whole point of my post was responding to the idea that "we must oppose Russia to prevent nuclear war". If that's the real objective, then yes it makes sense to say "well too bad" and but intervene like we do in Tigray and most of the conflicts around the world. I don't see why this particular human rights violation is inexcusable when there are children dying in areas that we are more directly responsible for(ie Iraq or Afghanistan)

It isn't also far fetched that the millions one might make may also get called into question just because of their nationality. The West's politics is further fueling this hate-filled divide; ceding air-time, socio-economic pedastal, and political will to the intolerant amongst us.

Agree. Passport discrimination is a harsh reality that hasn't gathered enough media attention.

One of stark examples is Turks in Germany still voting for Erdogan.

I swear, reading comments like these on social media makes me realize that a disturbingly large number of people are irrational about war.

I remember how Russia looked like 2 decades ago when it was piss poor. It was relatively peaceful and handful of its neighbors made it into NATO without any issues.

Wonder how that NATO expansion would have looked like if Russia was in a good shape? My bet is similar to what we see in Ukraine.

My rationale is very simple. If Putin is not stopped in Ukraine, next is my country and my city. I wish it was stopped in Georgia in 2008. But maybe it’s about time to end appeasement policy that clearly doesn’t work.

Nuclear weapons are not a problem if we all hold to the MAD doctrine.

This is anecdotal, buy from my friends living in the U.S, even those who do not have papers, prefer Trump/Republican than Democrat party.

Less culture war, twitter wokism, identity partitions.

Those people who agree with Putin may eventually start interfering with our politics. Either by enabling pro-Putin politics or pushing Putin-shaped local flavor. Why let in people who may turn society to worse?

Obviously the loss of life was terrible. People in my town died in the Twin Towers.

But I grew up mostly with American propoganda. I didn't know that the US had a long history of overthrowing governments in the Middle East and South America, and generally meddling in their affairs.

Not to mention trading Oil with corrupt Arab leaders who hold their countries hostage.

There is not an equivalence between the bad behvaior of the American and Russian state. I'd say Russians are worse in some ways, and Americans are worse in other ways -- largely because Americans are more powerful and influential.

So I'm basically agreeing with your argument, although I don't think it's "fair" for the people to suffer (e.g. all the people who died in 9/11). However Americans also have to realize that we largely haven't faced any consequences as people, except a few outliers of terrorist attacks.

(throwaway since I usually don't comment about politics)

My point is, even those russians who know the situation well on the level of knowledge, could be emotionally detached and think that's just how the world works - but now that they see unprecedented response, it can sink in emotionally that their government has really done something terrible.

I'm sorry, but this is whataboutism in its full glory.

The US has a free press, and its unfortunate history of overthrowing or supporting governments was and is well documented by the press and by historians in the United States. This documentation and publication resulted in many public scandals, lawsuits, and public intrigue, particularly through the 1960s to 1980s when the US's activities in this regard were perhaps that their peak. The resulting history is taught in universities and in elementary schools across the USA.

Now, there are well-known political parties or other people with a vested interest in spinning things in their own way, as is the case in any country, but if you think the United States press is anything like the press in Russia, or that its public is anywhere as ignorant of the facts as the public in Russia and similar countries, or if you felt you were unaware of the US history in this regard while it was going on, then you perhaps led a sheltered life. But it wasn't for lack of trying on part of the US press.

> I'm sorry, but this is whataboutism in its full glory.

Dismissing every argument with whataboutism seems to be flavour of the day, even when it is not whataboutism.

I lived during most of the period discussed by the GP. Everything from the Bay of Pigs to supporting the Shah to Iran Contra to the invasion of Grenada was well covered and well criticized in the US press. And the US invasion of Iraq was highly criticized in the US press even as the US government was facing an uphill battle to convince the world that it was proper by brandishing fake bottles of poison at the UN.

The US has done a lot of bad stuff. But claiming that the press just went along with it is historical revisionism, full stop.

That's even ignoring the fact that the Press itself is a propaganda tool for the US military-industrial complex, while steeping in biases of its own.

You're welcome to live in your own bubble of facts.

but when Apple Pay stops working, when costs skyrocket the blame will be on companies and on the west

take it from ex-Russian

The other half knows better, but also knows better than to talk about what they know publicly. Which is how Russia differs from the West.

Maybe in your circle.

You should open Odnoklassniki for a change. Or any propaganda website that gets tens of millions of readers per day. And those who know the truth would never open that because there is zero pieces of truth in them.

The struggle is real (TM).

In other words, he was tolerated with some approval. Not much thought was given to the trade-offs and some goodwill was assumed when these were made.

This approval is still there, but now it hinges on keeping masses fed with propaganda bullshit, to keep them believing that their fight (and suffering) is for the right cause. But when your life comforts take a nosedive, it will work only for so long.

So pulling a rug from under the unwashed gray masses is the exactly right thing to do in this situation. It's literally the only thing that could shake them off their consumerist nirvana, force to look around and realize how much they willingly exchanged in past 20 years for something that not only wasn't guaranteed, but could also be completely taken away on a very short notice.

As for western media, while no doubt less manipulated than Russian media, I don’t think it is safe to assume that western media is above manipulating public opinion to suit their agenda.

For example, I find it curious how little coverage the Ukraine-Russian conflict has received by western media until last week when this conflict has been a hot war since 2014.

Even here in Lithuania we got quite a few people eating up Russian propaganda and supporting Putin. I’ve no doubts it works even better in Russia.

Any media is biased. That’s how humans operate. The key is to watch different sources. And don’t get into „both sides have some truth“ BS. No, sometimes one side is flat out lying. But IMO it’s important to understand the other side narrative to understand their logic.

Here in Lithuania we got non-stop coverage of Ukraine since 2014. But I’m sure we get no coverage on stuff that is far away and public doesn’t care much.

In 2001 I don't even think I had a cellphone, we didnt have social media like we do now, the only source of news was the News Paper and TV.

If it happened now we would be blastered on twitter with videos / photos of it happening in real time like we are know. Much more aware of war crimes happening.

We can't change what happened in the past but I would like to think we can change the future, and Iraq doesn't happen again.

(I was living in NZ at the time still at school when 9 11 happened)

Maybe the next US war will be different ? I doubt it. US propaganda makes Russian propaganda look like amateur hour. Stuff that doesn't fit the mainstream narrative will be shutdown hard, while stuff that fits it will be amplified continuously.

But this is the start of the war, and there is A LOT of propaganda everywhere... everyone in the west is trying to show russia as losing everywhere, while they're conquering basically everything, on the other hand, they say that russians have destroyed whole cities, and only two short clips of the same building are showed, and now fearmongering like this reuters article.

I live in the balkans, and (obviously) I'm against any kind of war... but what putin is doing is no different than americans choosing a random middle eastern country (or even yugoslavia in 1999), and destroying the fuck out of it... but somehow it's different when americans do it.

I mean I'm ultimately against banning media, I linked to RT a few days ago to make a point about the propaganda they spread, back at the time of the Iraq War I was a huge Jon Stewart fan and watched him every night just crap on that bad ol' media using clips from the media and you can't really do that effectively while banning that same media. However, I've got to say, I don't think banning American Media in the early Bush era would have been a preposterous idea. I mean at the end of the day the US media succeeded in selling that war to the "coalition of the willing". US war propaganda is probably more dangerous than Russian war propaganda because it's more sophisticated in the way it manufactures consent and has this veneer of journalistic freedom.

[1] A wiki article that summarizes popular criticisms of US media from this time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_coverage_of_the_Iraq_War

Ps. A lot of people left RT because of it's propaganda and it's idiocracies even before the ban.

It doesn't matter that they left, the problem is the lack of free speech, because RT was the only medium that reported some things that most european newshouses avioided.

Obviously RT is displaying propaganda now, but so is everyone else, sadly.

Depends on if there's another incident akin to 9/11. Right now, if you tried to run the Iraq playbook again it would fail. But if something major happens which makes the US populace feel insecure, that could change.

I do think that there's a lesson in how difficult it would be to actually change the minds of Putin supporters in how slow the US reassessment of Iraq has been.

> US propaganda makes Russian propaganda look like amateur hour.

That's because US government narratives get continually sharpened and refined against the grindstone of challenges from the free press. This is different from countries where the government shuts down the press, such as Russia where the ridiculous canard that Ukraine needs to be "denazified" actually flies.

How can we let more average Russian citizens have access to real facts? It's now a crime in Russia to publish 'lies" about the Russian army. It's hard. And it's even harder because any information you manage to smuggle through is always tainted by coming from the corrupt west.

Just thinking aloud: what if the information reaching Russians does not come from the west but from other countries, all other countries, the global south, the far east? They can't be all corrupted by the west, can they?

An area with a minority, self declared independence, minority and majority fighting every now and then, and then the "outside player" deciding to attack the whole country to "protect the minority".

For us in the balkans, america has always been a bigger threat to peace (and still is), especially after having plane fly above our roofs to bomb a country 200miles away, and not that long ago, we were still a same country.

It is easy to claim that sanctions against the US would have been legitimate when it is clear to most that they would have had little to no meaningful impact.

Now, just china imposing sanctions, would seriously fuck with US economy. Add on EU to that, and the situation would be pretty bad for americans.

* There are a lot of Indians openly support Putin. I guess there is an excuse to justify the invasion because Russia is not the first one doing that.

* Inside China there are a lot of debate. Russians invasion obviously breaks the international law. But if US did the same thing in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Syria ...(Let's not debate if US conducted good invasion to avoid to going to rabbit hole), also indirectly caused humanity disaster and refugees, why put Russia in a different standard?

Not making judgement of which is correct or wrong, just saying it's difficult to convince certain population if different standards were applied.

Apart of breaking a new world record in number of people participating, they were a total lose of time.

All the opposition to a regime gathering together in a street, so can be conveniently netted and arrested like a school of fishes, is just making the life much easier for dictatorships

Evidently you didn't want to see.

* Make life unpleasant enough for the oligarchs that they replace Putin with someone less intent on ruining the nice thing they had going.

* Handicap Russia's ability to wage war. This includes eliminating their ability to buy supplies and destroying their morale.

It's the second goal that is, in my mind, the motivation for the economy-destroying sanctions.

This should be and opportunity to catalogue just exactly who the oligarchs are and what are their assets and how are they affected.

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/02/11/politics/executive-order-...

So any hit to a Russian Oligarch can eventually lead to a personal hit to Putin.

However, with all the resources of an entire nation under his singular pudgy fist, im sure he has plenty of shell-assets all across the west.

Also, ne thing we are not talking about is how the Russian mafia is profitting.

There is a huge Russo-Israeli mafia (speocifically in NYC (Kutchner fam)) and they apparently own a ton of real estate in NYC. This is who co-opted 1980s Dnald Trump...

If you arent familiar with this part of history, its been well hidden - but the Russo-Israeli Mafia in NYC is powerful. Follow the money and all that...

The human cost of all of this is going to result in a shitstorm of suffering on the part of young russian women as human trafficking is going to spike in the next ~18 months.

But if we still fear the atomic war, he can still threatens Europe with that.

There’s no defence against submarine based warheads; enough will get through.

It’s the reason that NATO isn’t going establish a no fly zone over Ukraine. They know it too.

The guy is 70 years old. An old, lonely, bitter man. His wife left him in 2013 and his kids are far away from him. All his Wealth is blocked, he will never be able to enjoy his life outside of his little empire. He has nothing to loose.

He could choose the bunker, but maybe he decides to bring the whole world with him. And if he decided already, nothing that we do, will make him happy. We are just deciding to die without even a fight.

The song that describes Putin right now:

"I am alone, this bitter man that I've become Hold my breath, laid to rest Drown in my tears, there's nothing left of me I am alone, the angry man upon his throne I can't pretend, the great descent Take my hand until the end You see me on the horizon I am the air you breathe I sold my soul to the seven seas Condemned and lost, pulled off course I will never leave, I'm always yours"

Any given day - Bitter Man

I can’t see what he has to gain from this war. There’s no upside for him.

All I can think is that he’s got something like Parkinson's, knows he’s on the way out and just wants throw his weight around one last time.

Honestly though your guess is as good as mine.

Cornering a dictator with a nuke is the stupidest foreign policy I can think of.

So, you can try to claim that Russia doesn't have oligarchs, but if they exist you can't say that they don't run the country.

EDIT: For example, if the country is run by the military as you say, then the top leaders of the military would make up the oligarchy and each of them would be an oligarch.

I'm unsure how any dictator could run a country in the absence of some form of supporting oligarchy.

Wonder who are the oligarchs of USA by that definition?

An American billionaire is a successful businessman. A Russian billionaire is an oligarch.

He has had all the time in the world to insulate himself and plan exactly for that situation. I bet he doesn't even come in contact in person with anyone he doesn't know from the Soviet days at this point and the people he does are probably guilty of all kinds of things themselves if Putin was done away with.

Russians have to decide: do you want to continue living in peace with the rest of the world, or not. In the former case, retake control of your country and stop invading, raping and murdering Ukrainian civilians.

Even if some might want it to go further, it won't, because the coalition will not hold. If Putin stops the war and pulls back to pre-invasion boundaries, the group of countries imposing sanctions will not continue to hold out for Putin's ouster in addition.

An outright revolution by the Russian people is not necessary, though we might hope for unrest which degrades Russia's ability to wage war. The suffering of Russia's common citizens isn't desirable. But it can be justified, since Ukrainian citizens have it far worse.

Americans about Russian wars: 'the average Joes need to go out to the streets and bring Putin down'

historically, a majority of Americans supported both the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq when they started, and public opinion did not turn against them for several years, and even then it was not an overwhelming majority.

Obama campaigned on the folly of those wars but chose to stay involved because it was believed by many that some level of success could yet be achieved for the people in those countries, who were in many cases partnering with the US.

Nevertheless, the eventual unpopularity of those wars did in fact lead to "regime change" in the US, because the US is a (somewhat) functioning democracy.

Americans are in fact at this very moment preventing the US from engaging in this war in Ukraine.

The US getting more directly involved in Ukraine was never a likely outcome, for reasons that have nothing to do with American public opinion. Throughout the Cold War, both the USA and the USSR made a policy of never directly engaging in conflict on the same soil, because the risk of it escalating into a nuclear war was just too great. Instead, they would fight proxy wars where at most one country was a direct combatant, and the other country merely provided material support to an ally.

We can expect the war in Ukraine to continue following the same playbook, and for the same reason. And other NATO countries will also avoid sending their own troops into Ukraine for fear of creating a slippery slope that pulls NATO's nuclear powers into the war.

America had its own share of propaganda, that brought popular support for those wars... some even very fake one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_testimony America also had hippies and other anti-war groups, so the situation is not that much different.

And yes, they don't risk 3-15 years of jail. They have hundreds of times higher chance to die.

But they don't use it as an excuse.

You sure? Or just speculate to support your point?

The only small numbers are russian army that wants to take a 44 mil country with weapons, cities, etc by their demotivated 150k troops that don't have the slightest clue how to fight.

Many other countries escaped from Russian influance thanks to mass demonstration (Poland, East Germany, ex USSR nations).

It is not easy, but there is not other way. Only Russian can dethrone Putin, no one else.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euromaidan

Furthermore Maidan had assistance from the US. No such thing exists in Russia.

Not by accident, or a rogue element, but purposefully.

When was the last time the US jailed, not by a mistake in justice but on purpose, all who dared speak out about her actions? And killed them when possible?

Many reading the above will say "But this one time...", yet that is the point. It is an aberration for such things in the US, not the norm. Not the standard.

Russia is not even remotely the same. It is a dictatorship, lead by a single, non-elected, blood thirsty, malicious murderer.

The whataboutisms are so weak, and paper thin here, it is absurd.

I say this as a US citizen hasn't improved of any of the US invasions and wars in my lifetime.

The idea that bombing and invading Syria Iraq and Afghanistan were somehow defensive wars is a joke

I'm against war in Ukraine and against Russian dictators, but Putin doesn't want to never leave, he wants to install pro-russian government, like USA does in attacked countries. But yes, we didn't hear about slaughtering civilians in our west-centric media, only from those russian propagandists like Assange and Snowden.

> When was the last time the US jailed, not by a mistake in justice but on purpose, all who dared speak out about her actions? And killed them when possible?

Like with Snowden, Assange and journalists involved in panama papers or Epstein case (who hanged himself in constantly observed cell)?

What is different from my perspective about Russia: USA is still one of the best economies in the world, still have democratic rulers where you can change them and wants other countries to become like it (which means better than their current state). Russia just wants other countries to work for Russian might. We had anecdote in Poland, that USSR is not that bad, because it takes coal from us for free, but in exchange we build ships for them for free. So, while many Poles would not really fight that much if USA wanted to take over the country, we would (and do alredy in Ukraine) oppose Russia with all we have.

This isn't an ethnic genocide. Had Putin wanted to kill civilians you wouldn't have 100s of deaths but millions like in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Just like the US he is looking to overturn the government.

The reality is that some people in Ukraine (Donbas and large portion of the East) do support Russia. Truth is never black and white.

However, we should not forget why this is so.

During WWII and after WWII, the Russians have forcibly moved a very large number of people from the territory that is now in Ukraine, to various unpleasant locations in the Soviet Union, mostly in Siberia.

Then they have brought Russian colonists, who were settled usually in the houses from which the natives had been evicted.

The descendants of those Russians brought in Ukraine, mostly by Stalin, have obviously not been happy with the independence of Ukraine, when they have become a 2nd rate nationality from a previously privileged one, like also the Russian colonists from other former parts of the Soviet Union, e.g. the Baltic countries or Georgia.

I agree that the Russians, now in minority, have their rights like anyone else, and they should not be persecuted by the new majority, but at the same time I do not believe that people who have so recently occupied by force the land on which they live now have the moral right to request "democratically" that their present country should become again a part of the empire which gave them houses and jobs, but those houses and jobs were provided by what was stolen from the former inhabitants.

Is this some grim joke? Had putin wanted to kill civilians, he could use nuclear weaponry in various forms to kill billions.

But putin, like everyone in this world, is limited by various factors, like army morale, or the patience of its neighbors. The economical situation of russia is terrible, but it can always get worse, and making a full scale attack against civilians, would end up with even more dramatic response like even China sanctioning them, or EU sanctioning them completely with complete disregard to own economy (no gas) or some kind of alliance actually attacking a nuclear empire for the first time in history (not counting the Japanese who didn't expect USA to develop the technology so fast), or... Simply putin would be killed by some highly ranked officer.

> Just like the US

What is it with all this symmetrism on HN? putin invaded Ukraine without casus belli.

I don't think we can find a diplomatic solution unless we truly try to understand the enemy. Saying he did this with no reason doesn't help this.

There's always a reason for any war. Bush had a reason to invade Iraq after all, didn't he? What was the real reason?

Putin views this as a proxy war between US and Russia. Cuban missile crisis was similar: US placed nukes in Turkey, too close for Russia's liking. Russia said they'd place nukes in Cuba. After US threatened WW3 a deal was reached and both sides pulled their nukes.

We could have achieved a similar deal and saved countless lived. But for whatever reason nobody wanted to negotiate with Putin. That would be fine if NATO would actually protect Ukraine instead of leaving them to fight on their own.

Actually, I tried to understand Pooking by inducing paranoia in myself. When I did that, all his actions become quite logical. He sees RF as victim of evil NATO. Any action of NATO is a step in evil plan to destroy RF. RF is so smart, so they see the evil plan of NATO, while others are blind, or pretend that they doesn't understand, or are playing their roles in the evil plan. Your text is quite logical when I'm switching to «paranoia» mode.

He wants to keep control over Europe and that would have been an instant loss as soon as production went live.

I believe the takeover over Crimea was primarily for this. The rest was a result of what he thought "preparation" to cement commodities/gas within his influence.

He's a bit jealous of China too. Russia has all this territory and doesn't even remotely gets the respect he screams for, at least he isn't getting it from the west.

It's a tiny man with a big ego.

> UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan described the war as illegal, saying in a September 2004 interview that it was "not in conformity with the Security Council"

However, I find comparing Ukraine to Iraq simply unconvincing. The latter had a recent history of aggression [2], which largely fueled the suspicion about the "weapons of mass destruction".

Comparing saddam husein [3] to Volodymyr Zelenskyy also fails spectacularly.

The comparison to the Cuban Missile Crisis is a miss too: in Ukraine the opposite happened, the nuclear weaponry was removed which was the Ukraine's part of the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances [4]. However russia doesn't respect its part:

> 1. The Russian Federation [...] respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine.

That's why I call it symmetrism: on one side there's an aggressive country, run by a tyrant with proven crimes against humanity, on the other a democratic country that wants to be free and independent and choose its allies. But putin considers it aggression.

It's one thing if it's a valid casus belli - people thinking so I consider to be unreasonable.

Another thing is, that putin calls a lot of things an aggression against russia. Recently he called sanctions such aggression. So now pretty much the entire world, in this madman's mind, has attacked russia and *IF* we accept the casus belli used against Ukraine, we have to accept a cassus belli against any other country putin attacks next. In other words, the idea behind cassus belli corrupted to the point where it's useless. It's like defining "cold" as colder that a quadrillion °C - now everything is cold, even the center of the Sun. The word became useless.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationale_for_the_Iraq_War [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Kuwait [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Saddam_Hussein [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Memorandum_on_Securit...

Here’s the situation and the order of events that led to this invasion:

Pro-Russian government was in power pre-2014.

Violent coup overthrew the government in 2014 and installed a pro western, anti Russian government.

This caused the mostly ethnic Russian region of Donbass to declare independence and break away from Ukraine, resulting in war.

Russia tacitly supported them, but did not recognise them.

The Minsk Accords was supposed to end the fighting in 2015, but Ukraine has not lived up to the agreement.

Ukraine has been shelling and bombing the region on and off for 8 years now.

Putin finally decided enough is enough and recognised the region as independent.

He sent troops into the area to protect it and his invasion of Ukraine is meant to destroy the Ukrainian military to prevent them from attacking Donbass.

Now its up to you whether you think Putin is sincere or he's just using it as an excuse to grab Ukrainian territory. Geopolitics is complicated and believing anyone is innocent in geopolitics is ludicrous at best.

Sounds about right.

> Violent coup overthrew the government in 2014 and installed a pro western, anti Russian government.

That's already where the chain breaks. Ukrainian people, not military, overthrew the government. Of course that can be argued, how do we know that - did the majority agree with the protesters? You could make a poll, but to be sure the results aren't manipulated, you have to make a referendum... Or just an election, in which who was elected? Did Putin send observers to control the elections, did he point out the problems with the system? No? Well, that's where this narration breaks. The world is full of such subtle solutions like election monitoring; it's ridiculous to claim benevolence but skip those solutions and go straight to violence.

Doing the same to Russia should be our target. If we cannot end the totalitarian regime without starting World War III, we can still neutralize it as a threat to the rest of the world.

So, we should give them weapons?

> disorganised and divided

You think that overthrowing their government would work? Maybe with some "special military operation" perhaps?

> "we're afraid to confront your bully, he's just too strong and cruel for us."

Or maybe - we have a rule where we don't try to assasinate leaders unless strictly necessary. And before you say about Iraq and nin Laden - that was USA operation, not NATO. But I still think that would be best solution which minimises losses in people. But try to do this, even bin Laden was not found in one week, it would be much harder to find Putin in some vault. Plus, after he is killed, there will be some other former KGB agent to replace him.

And yet, here we are. Maybe this is the rule that needs to change. How many of these wars will we see in the coming decades if we simply start assassinating the leaders of aggressive countries?

I understand there are often power vacuums and things can be worse afterward, but maybe a good, 20-year run of assassinating aggressive world leaders would lead us to a better place.

Why is it always the average Joe that has to pay his life for the leaders?

What's the option, though? Inaction? Sanctions hurt the people because hurting the support base is the only way to exert pressure on those unrepresentative governments.

At the end of the day, all governments operate via the consent of the governed, even autocracies. But the expression of that consent gets really ugly the less democratic the environment. The international community can't fix Russian democracy, so all that is left for us (absent military action) is to change the reward structure for those who can.

And the sanctions also result in oligarchs losing their assets. Want to be an ass and disconnect from the west? Fine. But you’re not taking your toys. They can be in prison together with the people they constantly barrage with these narratives. If sanctions don’t work and not sanctioning doesn’t work, might as well sanction and be done with it.

Russia invaded a neighboring country and is racking up the war crimes against civilians there. A Russian teenager unable to play XBox is maybe slightly less important than the indiscriminate shelling of hospitals and nuclear power plants.

And straight up shooting civilians on the street with assault rifles... this is literally happening in Ukraine :(

Putin _is_ getting his power from the Russian people. It's unfortunate they believe his lies, but they do, and that's what makes him strong.

Ya know The Us feels very threatened by Belarus. They should have to withdraw from their alliance from Russia and decouple. Otherwise we’ll invade and neutralize it ourselves.

Should Russia schedule a delivery of nuclear weapons to Cuba for this week or next?

>Ya know The Us feels very threatened by Belarus. They should have to withdraw from their alliance from Russia and decouple

Is that because of its close proximity to Maine?

I guess it's closer than Iraq...

Frankly, I couldn’t care less. But if you think a country choosing to ally with a country is the same as positioning nuclear weapons, well, that’s your problem. Recall that Russia exited nuclear arms treaties and controls, which were the result of an insane arms buildup and included activities like putting missiles in Cuba. Even the Soviet Union got it.

> Is that because of its close proximity to Maine?

So you can only feel threatened by a country that you share a border with?

> I guess it's closer than Iraq...

This is called whataboutism and it can safely be rejected.

The US repudiated the ABM treaty before Russia did any of that (Russian withdrawal from START II was a direct response to that), and also exited the Open Skies Treaty first. There are many, many things to blame Russia for, but collapsing the arms control and verification regime that developed during the Cold War was entirely the US (and specifically an active partisan project of the GOP.)

> On December 13, 2001, U.S. President George W. Bush, who argued that Washington and Moscow no longer needed to base their relationship on their ability to destroy each other, announced that the United States would withdraw from the ABM Treaty, claiming that it prevented U.S. development of defenses against possible terrorist or "rogue-state" ballistic missile attacks. [1]

[1] https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/abmtreaty

Without getting into the entire history of tit-for-tat let’s not pretend that withdrawing from this treaty was the result of some wonton aggression toward little ole’ Russia.

From game theory stand point that is the only course of action to maintain MAD.

If you're falling behind in drones and high precision weapons, it would be very disadvantageous if everyone went nukeless.

US was the dominant influence behind economic reforms in Russia in the early 90s, so I do not understand how that argument can be made in good faith. It's Dr. Frankenstein blaming Frankenstein (his creation) for being a monster.

Also, if the Cold war was over - why did NATO even expand? A lot of people on HN say that it is a purely defensive alliance, why would you expand if you were acting in good will, especially when you said you would not?

Many reasons. One can simply be good salespeople. Another could be an effective role as world police. Another could be to constrain violent dictatorships from invading neighboring countries. But sure it’s just so very aggressive toward little ole’ Russia.

> US was the dominant influence behind economic reforms in Russia in the early 90s, so I do not understand how that argument can be made in good faith. It's Dr. Frankenstein blaming Frankenstein (his creation) for being a monster.

What argument?

> Also, if the Cold war was over -

I guess you can debate this with someone but everyone alive who anybody cares to listen to recognizes that the Cold War ended with the fall of the Soviet Union.

> why did NATO even expand?

Because Russia is a mafia state run by old KGB morons who are pillaging the country and, as you can see, starting wars against neighboring countries. Georgia. Moldova. Ukraine. Why wouldn’t you want to be protected from that?

> A lot of people on HN say that it is a purely defensive alliance, why would you expand if you were acting in good will, especially when you said you would not?

Don’t care.

There's war in Yemen right now, with one of the sides heavily backed by Saudi Arabia, where's the world police? Or does it only respond to calls when land changes hands?

>starting wars against neighboring countries.

1/3 countries admitted in 1999 have a border with Russia.

3/7 countries admitted in 1999 have a border with Russia.

0/4 of those admitted after that.

>Because Russia is a mafia state run by old KGB morons who are pillaging the country and, as you can see, starting wars against neighboring countries.

There's no denying it being a mafia state, but that may not necessarily be the only or even the dominant explanation.

Even Wikipedia (which Russia had repeatedly considered banning on its territory) cites quite different reasons: "By mid-1992, a consensus emerged within the administration that NATO enlargement was a wise realpolitik measure to strengthen American hegemony.[20][21] In the absence of NATO enlargement, Bush administration officials worried that the European Union might fill the security vacuum in Central Europe, and thus challenge American post-Cold War influence."

>Georgia

The situation with Georgia reads very similar to the current conflict, except Georgia had taken the Russian role in the past: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian%E2%80%93Abkhaz_confli...

But why not just say that and stop saying stuff like "no-no, those anti-ballistic missiles we deployed in Poland are against potential Iranian aggression."

I think encircling your border with an offensive military alliance is very much like placing nukes 100 miles away and pointing them at you, yes.

I wouldnt want the military alliance that destroyed Libya anywhere near me if I thought I could be a target. Having a strict "dont end up like Libya" policy is actually a fairly sensible.

>This is called whataboutism

It's called sarcasm.

Why do you think NATO is an offensive alliance against Russia?

> I wouldnt want the military alliance that destroyed Libya anywhere near me if I thought I could be a target. Having a strict "dont end up like Libya" policy is actually a fairly sensible.

Odd isn’t it? It’s almost like if you are like Libya, and you murder your citizens, deny them basic rights, and enrich yourself at their expense you end up on the receiving end of some measure of justice. I can’t imagine what could possibly prevent that. No country has ever figured that out. Nope. No way.

It was set up specifically to oppose Moscow.

It destroyed Libya.

It is an offensive alliance without question.

That doesnt excuse Russia, but Russia invading Ukraine doesnt excuse NATO either.

Wrong. It was set up to oppose the Soviet Union. Not Russia. Putin himself was talking about joining NATO. Regardless of how serious he was, no country consider joining an organization if it’s hostile to them.

> It is an offensive alliance without question.

Good thing you mentioned Libya, because that’s the only campaign that NATO involved in an offensive role. Even putting aside the circumstances of that campaign, an offensive organization that exists for 73 years but has only waged a single war, does that make any sense?

I said Moscow. Did Moscow stop being Moscow?

>Good thing you mentioned Libya, because that’s the only campaign that NATO involved in an offensive role.

One rape makes you a rapist.

>an offensive organization that exists for 73 years but has only waged a single war

They've waged many. I gave Libya as an example because there are no shades of gray in that war and because it was the war that shaped Putin's view of what NATO's endgame was for Russia (quite fairly, IMHO).

Or Finland. What then? Negotiated peace only works if it works, and it clearly doesn't with Putin. We tried your suggestion already and it failed.

The point is we DIDNT try adhering to minsk, zelensky decided he 100% wanted to be NATO rather than neutral and NOW look where we are.

A bit of decentralization, some restored Russian language rights and a promise for NATO to back off would ALL have been easier.

>What happens when he comes for the rest of Ukraine in another 8 years, or Moldova?

How exactly does neutral make that happen?

What happens when NATO tries to do to Russia what it did to Libya?

Maybe it will turn people into Putin supporters, and maybe, hopefully, with time, it will push them to revolt.

You'll hear teenagers talking about their generation in the third person: "I recognize that my generation has a lot more to deal with than previous generations". College students in a similar way.

You'll hear us paint the enemy, as you described with "the Republicans" and "the Democrats" - although each will use other terms less endearing.

Politicians always talk about what "American families want .."

The recent culture wars as well, whether it was about Covid stuff, or the racial conversations that were prominent up until recently. Am I a "privileged X" or a "member of the community"? Either way, I will start the sentence with, "As an X, I want to say ...". Are "they" "anti-maskers"? Or are "they" "triple vaxxers"?

It's almost like people have internalized sociological statistics as identity, and internalize the language used about us, but from the outside.

It must be a great time to be alive if you work in a marketing department of a big tech company, given how easy it is to "target the market segment"[1] or perhaps engage in state-sponsored information warfare that pits right against left and left against right.[2]

1 - https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/market-segment.asp

2 - https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.technologyreview.com/2021/0...

There's not many options beside kinetic war and obliterating the economy.

What do you suggest we do that would be more effective? Hand over Ukraine's sovereignty?

Here is a kicker - there were few coups even in North Korea.

So russians are fine with regime. And even though actions speak louder than words, most people even didn't SPEAK against it until few days ago.

So unless you openly spoke against putin and regime for years, you were part of the problem.

Also, in Ukraine people go against armed forces with bare hands on protests and risk being KILLED. In russia they are afraid to protest to get 15 day jail time? Sorry, no excuse here either.

So instead of fleeing all the Russians of the world should flock back instead.

15 YEARS. I'd rather die, especially if I was giving my life for my country.

I think they're mostly grown in countries doing the imposing of sanctions. If they had to suffer the consequences of sanctions imposed on them, for what their own countries did, they'd have a much different understanding.

As someone who was on the receiving end of sanctions in ex-yu, despite being antiwar and going to protests, I can’t ever support wide sanctions which affect all people. Years we were under sanctions were the worst years of my life. The worst thing is they harm oposition and make regime stronger. Government can tell “the world hates us, and those who want to colaborate with west are traitors and you should not vote for them”, and that’s easy sell to population directly suffering from sanctions.

The stark reality of Mutually Assured Destruction is that America will turn Russia, its military, its cities, its dirt into radioactive glass if they launch their nuclear weapons. Look at this reality in the face and then decide if you still oppose sanctions.

Who said sanctions would "forestall" that?

So, let's trust the "brains" of a Cold War apparatus for western dominance, involved in tons of wars, destabilization of governments, and so on, when it comes to how to get world peace...

I don’t think that you understand that the world that you live in is founded on this one fact, and that these “wars, destabilizations, and so on” are but the limited moves available to a board that it otherwise locked down.

You don’t understand the world state, so you’re mad when wars happen, but you cannot compare even large conflicts like Ukraine to a NATO/Russia or NATO/China conflict. It is in a completely different class.

In the context of a NATO/Russia conflict, nuclear weapons are the weapon of choice, while conventional armies are effectively clean up and a way to annoy at your opponent.

So, yes, let’s trust NATO and we could trust the USSR’s Politburo, and the CCP. We thought we could trust Putin, but now we’re not so sure.

It looks to me sanctions are implemented as a punishment, as a feel good move, as “we have to do something”. What’s the realistic end goal of blocking internet access, or software, or Visa/MC/Apple pay to Russia? Does it help a goal of overthrowing Putin, or strengthening his case? “We have to do something” is not a good reason if there are no positive effects, but there are negative ones.

You don't want to shoot your relatives in another country and you are afraid to meet the same fate as your general killed from a long distance because crazy politician in power had a tantrum?.

The solution is simple: Some pieces in your tank broke, you turn in the wrong direction and get stuck in a marsh, or gasoline vanish mysteriously overnight and you are stuck out of the war until a replacement arrives with the spare parts.

This can lasts for several weeks or months if you must buy it in another countries and nobody is selling you. Or can need to fill a lot of bureaucracy to just take if from another tank and send it to the front (and then you have 2 tanks out of service instead one). When you finally arrive to the fight there is a lot less of enemies to deal with.

With the advantage that you didn't deserted and don't fear retaliation. You can blame the tank maker or any other that is lower in the food chain. It was not your fault.

"Backed into a corner" is a phrase that is tossed around too easily these days. NATO does not want to force him into that corner with a "no-fly" zone over Ukraine. Brutal, backbreaking sanctions and the loss of support of a brainwashed public is the current alternative. I am certain that there are even harsher options in the pipeline. For example, cutting off oil and gas purchases, and sacrificing Western economies in an era of record high inflation. In my opinion, NATO will gladly make that trade to keep Putin from abandoning MAD.

I suppose you were being sarcastic, but put away your snide and come up with actual better suggestions!

Many Polish people still remember communism. I was born in communism. And we still support sanctions.

Tell us what do you propose as an alternative to the sanctions.

It's quite possible that there's nothing at all that can be done right now, apart from humanitarian help. No matter how much we wanted the war to stop. At least if we're only looking at options that don't lead to worse outcomes.

The time to prevent this was probably years ago. But I'm far from geopolitics expert, I can just speculate lake enyone else.

Xenophobes are well and truly out of their closets. This is why I hate wars. It incentivizes the absolute worst everywhere.

It has been an average Russian guy that does it for centuries.

Virtually every country bordering Russia has suffered from this in the past few hundred years. I don't mean to say that it's right, but it should be easily understandable why any country that had portions of their population deported to Siberia and sent to gulag campus would have tensions that were reignited with this conflict.

Same by the way applies to everybody else, USA folks included

If they stay and get drafted to fight in the war for real, how does this help?

And sure, they could try to organize revolts - but would you? That is extremly dangerous and a million times easier said than done.

Fleeing the country is a strong peaceful revolt on the other hand. Helping those people will mean helping an opposition that one day maybe wants to go back to russia to build up alternative structures.

Just an idea: perhaps it's easier to circumvent sanctions if you can move abroad in order to make money transfers. You could also make money transfers for your family and friends while you're there. Or even create some kind of a business, where you're a middleman. Perhaps the sanctions can be improved in a way to not hurt people leaving russia, but obviously as it increases complexity, it also requires more time to prepare.

Still, a russian may make money abroad and then return to russia with the money. So "improving" those sanctions would effectively decrease them.

No, it just ensures that the only people left in Russia are the ones who support Putin.

And like I said, Ukrainians have no choice. Why should Russians? As another poster said, even autocracies need a certain level of support to operate. It's not fair to punish Russians but their country is literally waging a full scale war while threatening the west with nukes. They can stop it.

Or we can all wait until Kyiv looks like Grozny, millions have died and we're sacrificing the Baltic states to "prevent nuclear war"...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

Also my debater accepted the argument and wrapped himself in that straw.

From both a humanitarian and a strategic perspective, embracing Russian defectors is the very most important thing that we can be doing right now that we aren't already doing. The only reason not to do so is hate.

No, the most humanitarian thing to do is end a war in which civilians are actually being killed.

Not embracing those who supported Putin get to this point but suddenly flee when they're personally inconvenienced.

My wild hope for this situation is that somehow Putin and his gang are ousted, and we can Marshall Plan Russia into a successful, prosperous European democracy. Even make them a partner with NATO like we tried to do before. Admittedly the Russian people would have to want that, so that's a precondition, but I'm hopeful.

It's not. There's many ways in which you can get in contact with russians. And many of them actually support putin.

Yes, you can say people are indoctrinated. But maybe so is putin - that's the problem with determinism.

hitler was not one guy. putin is not one guy.

I'm against lifting sanctions when putin dies. Much more has to be done.

Ask someone like Alexei Navalny or Mikhail Khodorkovsky why they stayed to fight and be jailed instead of fleeing. Fleeing doesn't help.

Russia hasn't been conquered since the most recent Russian Empire was formed. But regimes have fallen from within...

Khodorkovsky hasn't stayed after he got out.

And Navalny overplayed his hand. It appears he really thought it was about him, not the movement he had created, otherwise he'd have had his wife run for office, which is what wives of those arrested in Belarus did.

People who don't wont to fight are bad as soldiers so why force them?

Ask the Russians who are bombing them and preventing them from leaving. Russia has already broken the cease-fire meant to evacuate civilians.

Or ask the Russians who started the war. Ask the Russians carrying out their leadership's orders.

Russians are the ones taking away Ukrainians' choices.

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2022/02/25/russia-i...

And that people on the outside are helpful was proven in World War II were many germans fled.

Ah yes so effective. Only 40 million killed.

They were german citiciens after all, so they were all 100% responsible for the war and holocaust?

It is a complex world and oversimplifying solutions rarely help.

Russians are claiming the contrary.

https://tass.com/society/1417395

But I guess you believe the Russians are eating civilians alive if they can.

>the Russians are eating civilians alive if they can

the Russians are indiscriminately bombing Ukrainian residential areas, including using prohibited cluster and vacuum munitions.

When it comes to eating, the Russians are marauding stores for food and alcohol as Russian military supply is broken and stolen in typical Russian fashion.

Cluster likely, vacuum unlikely. They are not covered by geneva convention and I don't think Russia signed no-use treaties for them (it doesn't make these munitions less horrible).

https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-oldvideo-notrussia...

without knowing of a minimum of related history, you're still feeling like you cam meaningfully comment.

>The narrative of the russian officials is like the ukranian army places its heavy units in residential areas which makes them difficult to attack without causing collateral damage.

You feel necessary to repeat Russian propaganda again. According to that Russia propaganda the Soviet defenders of Stalingrad are guilty of Stalingrad destruction not German Nazi.

Anyway, if Ukrainians are hiding heavy units in residential areas when why all this tremendous amount of videos of the widespread residential destruction by Russian bombings contain no Ukrainian weaponry? Showing destroyed Ukrainian tank which was hidden in the children sandbox would be a great propaganda scoop for Russians, yet somehow they still haven't managed to show anything like this.

On the other side there is huge number of Russian tanks, armor carriers burnt on the city streets. Why those Russians were in the city? It is very reasonable to suspect that in those cases the Russians have been using the cities as human shield. Tons of videos like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-pBMdUWhws , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ge07_whd1v0 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khPbavvcP38

>Cluster likely, vacuum unlikely.

again, you either repeat propaganda or more likely talking what you don't know about.

Cluster - the "spines" of the Uragan and "Smerch" cluster missile in the attacked areas is a clear evidence, like here for example https://twitter.com/bellingcat/status/1497205591814684678?s=...

Vacuum - in the linked video the explosion is pretty characteristic of vacuum munition https://www.youtube.com/shorts/H6Hj5VoZN_k . And there is a number or reports of Russian TOS-1 "Buratino" - vacuum munition missile launcher, and that weapon "shines", ie. extremely damaging in cities, not open field.

It does not, as only a very tiny fraction of those who want to get out, can actually get out. And some choose to stay because of family, buisness, whatever.

But those who left will be the reminder of the status quo for everyone - especially if it was the well educated who left.

"And like I said, Ukrainians have no choice."

But this is the choice of the ukrainian government. I am against mandatory conscripting and would not accept to be force drafted myself. And I would not want to fight next to people who might flee any second.

"They can stop it."

And have you stopped the iraq war? Or closed guantanamo? Or stopped the war in yemen?

Why not? Or are you in support of them?

> And have you stopped the iraq war? Or closed guantanamo? Or stopped the war in yemen?

I'm not American. Ask a yank.

> But this is the choice of the ukrainian government. I am against mandatory conscripting and would not accept to be force drafted myself. And I would not want to fight next to people who might flee any second.

Ask a woman who's been raped why she wore a short skirt... You should be asking why Russia is killing civilians, not why Ukrainians are defending them.

But you get the point, that your possibilities as an individual (with maybe responsibilities for a family) are quite limited to stop the actions of a whole state?

And like I said, leaving the state is very effective protesting. No more state support anymore from that person, but one more who had enough. That gives the remaining something to think.

Any support this is actually the case besides "the ukranian officials said ... "?

https://tass.com/society/1417395

They. Have. To stop. Putin!

Examples:

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissenters%27_March

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pussy_Riot

Yet here is the problem: western countries allowed Putins regime to exist and grow in it's power for 15+ years and no one cared until this terrible war started. But before there been a lot of other events.

No one gave a damn when Putins olygarchs got rich and moved hundreds of billions of dollars out of Russia. They owned tons of real estate abroad, their children study abroad and most of their families moved to live abroad.

Around 2012 mass protests in Russia was supressed and a lot of people landed in prison. Some opposition leaders were killed.

Then Russia invaded Ukraine and annexied Crimea. Again there been little resistence from EU and US who supposedly have to guarantee sovereignty to Ukraine after this country gave up nuclear weapons.

When Navalny was poisoned and then imprisoned. Again no one really cared.

"Maximum penalties were fines of several thousand rubles or imposed labor of up to 200 hours" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011%E2%80%932013_Russian_prot...

That's how it works, but can he incarcerate millions of people?

We have good examples of non-violent protests that won against such regimes:

We did in GDR. We went to te streets. The machine guns were mounted on the top of every single train station. We went to the streets anyway. Not with stones, but candle lights.

We have examples as in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otpor#Strategy_and_tactics

We have literature about it https://www.nonviolent-conflict.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/...

We have as well examples of violent protests through the History that worked (I don't support it, but we cannot deny their efficiency) https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/how-violent-protests-...

Don't underestimate Russian capabilities when it comes to punishing regular people - 18millions went through gulag system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag

Main problem that in Russia people who live in Moscow are too well-fed and their standards of living are too high to go and protest with a risk to lose everything. And protests outside of capital mean very little since distances are too big. No one gonna notice if 1000 people in small russian city will land in prison.

Again I wish that people in Russia were as brave as those in ukrainians protecting their home, but I personally is not the one of brave ones. I wish I could do more to prevent this. Sorry.

Is fleeing make me a bad person now? Nope, I dont think so.

For sure not. You do what you have to do. But it is important for us to reflect about it. Who is able to do more damage to Putin without any risk of a new nuclear war? The russian people.

Yes, after killing 30 million+ people. It would have been much easier if Germans didn't enable them or someone took out Hitler in 1938.

And we punished Germany for generations because of it. The US still has military bases there to this day.

But after Trump made the actual decision to pull out all US troops, there was rather lots of whining, because the military bases are important for the local economies ..

Poland, who fought Germany with the biggest % casualties, ended up in a much worse state than Germany, because of russian occupation in the form of communism (Germany had a healthy part to take over after USSR collapsed) and no participation in the marshal plan.

So I have doubts if we can speak about Germany being punished for generations.