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[Random_Dragon]

Time to rename the thread I guess.

[LordBaal]

Please not yet....

[Random_Dragon]

Please not yet....

Too late. Settled on "maybe" since this is like the third or fourth nuclear-related threat Putin's given. :V

[Lord Shonus]

I wasn't going to post it, but I've seen similar things before the article today on twitter that putin might be happy about russia's sanctions and the banks being closed off to the world (or swift anyway seems like that be the world though). I saw it posted today on faux news, but it does bring up since I've seen it before and seen mention of it on twitter even today...that (maybe) this has allowed putin to gain a lot more power within Russia since now the banks don't have the power (or something like that), and it is him? I didn't click the article to give it views and twitter is just short text mostly. Sounds pretty BS though and probably fake news as I would think he'd get overthrown by his own military. But it does seem like putin doesn't care at all what so ever about any sanctions, seems to embrace them completely.

Does this have any truth in it though? That the more closed off russia gets, the more power putin ends up getting within his "sphere of influence" or whatever it is. Sounds more and more like a dictatorship if so.

It's nonsense. The sanctions are very likely to cripple the oligarchs, and that's something that Putin can't survive. His only win condition here is to pull out a victory in Ukraine and then somehow convince the rest of the planet to drop their sanctions.


And by "rest of the planet", I'm only slightly exaggerating. The only people rallying behind Putin are Russia's vassal states, and there's only a handful of neutrals. The overwhelming majority of the world's nations stand behind Ukraine.

[The_Explorer]

Well...

https://www.news.com.au/world/europe/russia-ukraine-live-updates-fears-belarus-will-join-russia-in-invasion/news-story/cdfc0f6a51c15fd368e6c23056accdac

Putin ordered to take the capital at any price

(edit: And yeah I figured that was nonsense to the post right above)

[MrRoboto75]

Please not yet....

Too late. Settled on "maybe" since this is like the third or fourth nuclear-related threat Putin's given. :V

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brTeI8X-SoQ

[lemon10]

Honestly, I'm just as suprised as Putin about how strong the western response was here. Its not like it's Putin's first or even second time invading Ukraine and both of those times he got comparative slaps on the wrist.  Glad to see that massive pressure is being applied, really wonder how this will end up working out in the end.

Not well for Putin seems to be the answer cause even if he somehow managed to conquer Ukraine tonight he's already lost. Will it result in him losing power? Maybe? Hopefully?

I found this twitter thread to be pretty interesting. I can't speak to the accuracy of the military part of it, but he's spot on about the other stuff.

It's nonsense. The sanctions are very likely to cripple the oligarchs, and that's something that Putin can't survive. His only win condition here is to pull out a victory in Ukraine and then somehow convince the rest of the planet to drop their sanctions.

If he withdraws from Ukrain he could likely get the sanctions dropped, but... That would be admitting defeat, which could have grave consequences for him.
But yeah, agreed about the sanctions. He almost certainly thought they would be similar to his earlier sanctions for invading Ukraine, aka, slaps on the wrist. What he got instead was far heavier.

[andrea]

The difference being Ukrainian resistance to the attack. Had Ukrain capitulated in the first days as was apparently planned, I bet that there would have been only mild sanctions to save face, but ultimately western countries would have pretty much accepted it.
But with Ukraine holding fast long enough for european internal politics and Ukrainian diplomacy to gear up, the situation is completely different. It is not a matter of punishing a previous act, but of stopping an ongoing one and willingness to do that is significantly higher.

[martinuzz]

The Russian ministry of Defense has told the population of Kiev to evacuate the city.
Kiev has a population of 3 million, of which 300000 are ethnic Russians. The latter are a problem for Putin. Bombing Kiev would kill many Russians, which won't make him more popular at home.

[Loud Whispers]

The Russian ministry of Defense has told the population of Kiev to evacuate the city.

Prelude to bombardment?

[martinuzz]

Maybe. Or just a scare tactic to get rid of the massive resistance.
They might have a military force outnumbering Ukraine's military force, but in sheer manpower, they are fighting about a million angry Kiev residents with maybe 30000 man, so locally they are vastly outnumbered.

EDIT Amnesty Internation has condemned Russia for using illegal cluster bombs.
According to Amnesty, Russia dropped a clusterbomb on a daycare centre and kindergarten last friday. 3 people where killed, of whom one was a child and another child injured. Expect more children to die somewhere between now and the next 10 years from unexploded cluster ammunition.

[Loud Whispers]

That and Russian morale is at an all time low as it seems significant numbers of Russian troopers are unwilling to follow their own orders and fight people they see as their brothers whilst the Ukrainian morale is at an all time high; doesn't matter what advantages you have if your own troops just don't want to be there, don't believe in their cause, and don't even know what their mission objectives are

How is denazify Ukraine a win-state a soldier can understand when even they don't believe Ukraine is nazi?

The other problem is they seem to have very limited joint operations experience. They have lost a lot of elite units like their paratroopers and spetznas by sending unprotected transport plains and troop carriers into areas they already experienced heavy losses in. But for whatever reason no one is telling their command these areas are dangerous. To make matters worse for the Russians, there have been soldiers using unencrypted communications, which would explain why the Ukrainians have been so successful at ambushing convoys

[martinuzz]

I hope Putin realizes that if he uses a nuke offensively in the Ukraine that the last thing he will see are 190 (the 193 members of the UN minus the one or two fellow nazi collaborators) declarations of war in his inbox, a few seconds before Russia's population is reduced by a factor 100.
If the Russian army really wants to protect the lives of ethnic Russians and fight nazism they should rebel and coup.

[Starver]

So, Ukraine's president has asked for immediate membership of the EU, by special resolution. It probably won't work, though possibly easier than getting around NATO's not-currently-in-war policy, but it's gutsy and if (biiiiiiig if!) made to happen would signal far more support from the combined EU than just about any other goodwill gesture that isn't already a direct attack - because it would instantly mean there'd then be no realistic quibbles about that particular mobilisation happening and then it'd be a valid NATO action by immediate association.

(Makes me think that if Putin has been studiously guarding against a right-jab from NATO, all along, perhaps he's forgotten to fully consider that the EU has a potentially useful left-hook as well.)

[Ulfarr]

I hope Putin realizes that if he uses a nuke offensively in the Ukraine that the last thing he will see are 190 (the 193 members of the UN minus the one or two fellow nazi collaborators) declarations of war in his inbox, a few seconds before Russia's population is reduced by a factor 100.
If the Russian army really wants to protect the lives of ethnic Russians and fight nazism they should rebel and coup.

There isn’t such thing as using a single nuke. The moment one is launched the retaliation is such that they might have launched them all.