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[brewer bob]

According to UK's Ministry of Defence, Russia is redeploying troops from Georgia.

Spoiler: from BBC live updates (click to show/hide)

UK: Russia redeploying troops from Georgia

The UK's Ministry of Defence says some Russian forces currently deployed in Georgia will be sent to reinforce troops in Ukraine.

It's the latest sign that Moscow's game plan on the ground is changing, five weeks into a largely stalled invasion.

The move is "indicative of the unexpected losses it has sustained during the invasion", the ministry said.

It added that some of the redeployed forces are expected to be reorganised into three battalion tactical groups for combat.

[Svarte Troner]

Please maybe chill with debating the definitons of nationality, nationhood, and nationalism in the Ukraine war thread, this is getting a little off topic and could get heated.

I'm not trying to offend anyone, I respect you all even though we may have different opinions. And even though I think a discussion of the evils of nationalism couldn't be more relevant to current events and I had more to say, I'll hold my peace.

edit: but if anyone wants to continue hit me up in the dm's I love talking about the definitions of nationality, nationhood, and nationalism. 

[Random_Dragon]

Russia drafts 134,500 conscripts but says they won't go to Ukraine -Reuters

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-drafts-134500-conscripts-says-they-wont-go-ukraine-2022-03-31

Won't go to Ukraine. Riiight, at best they'll probably be routed to the parts of Ukraine Russia's currently trying to steal because by their logic it's "not Ukraine" while more likely that's just the usual bald-faced horseshit.

[JoshuaFH]

Just judging from Russia's phenomenal lack of training, supplies, and organization thus far, it might as well read "Drafts 134,500 soon to be dead or deserted conscripts". You'd think that Putin would realize that modern wars aren't won with numbers alone.

[MaxTheFox]

Well both originate from the same East Slavic tribal group is what I meant, I never claimed they were literally the same or that Ukrainians came from Russia. Russians have more Tatar-Mongol blood I think.

Blood is absolutely irrelevant. Culture is the only thing that matters.

And culture is the only way to see if you are still of the same nation as people from a few hundreds of years ago. If you understand their literature, their legends, their art, their ideas and if you share some of their values then you are, to some extent, of the same nation as them.


I always find it hilarious when some Russian says something like "my grandma was a Ukrainian so I am 25% Ukrainian!".

I can claim that I am partly Russian because Russian is my native language and because I consumed tons of Russian content ranging from Russian literature to modern Russian music. I don't share Russian values (at least the vast majority of them) but at least I know them. Russians know nothing about who Ukrainians really are assuming that we are just like them. And this is one of the reasons they make plans like "We'll capture Zelensky, he'll order the troops to surrender and we'll have Ukraine in our hands." One needs to know nothing about how Ukraine works to assume that this can work. Don't invade people who have a "we'll sacrifice our bodies and souls for our freedom" line in their anthem and expect to win with no effort.

Sorry for writing novel-sized posts barely related to the topic of the thread... But it helps to distract myself from... Everything.

_______________________
Not that there is much to discuss about the war in Ukraine, war became a daily routine, Ukrainian army advances in one areas, Russia in others... Hundreds (if not thousands) die each day, no major changes whatsoever...

Fair enough.

[Telgin]

Just judging from Russia's phenomenal lack of training, supplies, and organization thus far, it might as well read "Drafts 134,500 soon to be dead or deserted conscripts". You'd think that Putin would realize that modern wars aren't won with numbers alone.

My thoughts too.  I don't think Russia has the ability to make use of that many more soldiers even if they wanted to send them to the battlefield, for logistical reasons if nothing.

I also read somewhere on Reddit that this isn't unusual, and is something that was a planned event that Russia has done on a schedule before now.  I didn't read into it more but assume it's like mandatory military service to try to keep part of the population trained as national guard.

[Strongpoint]

Meanwhile, an oil depot in Russian Belgorod is on fire, allegedly after a night attack of Ukrainian helicopters.

This is a prelude to the future. On Kyiv, Chernigiv, Kharkiv fronts Ukrainian forces are pushing Russian forces back to the border... And I doubt that it will be like 2014 when Ukrainian forces will just watch how Russian artillery shells us across the border. We'll have to shoot back. Even moving into Russian territory isn't out of the question.

Russia can and will use it for a justification of further escalation, up to tactical nukes.

[Madman198237]

The Russians have left the site. According to the Ukrainian state nuclear company, Energoatom, they dug trenches in radioactive forest, and they panicked and retreated when symptoms of radiation poisoning set in (hint: by that time, it's too late. Have a nice death. I recommend humane euthanasia, or if that's unavailable in Russia, just suicide. You really don't want to suffer the agonizing death of radiation poisoning).

This is not entirely true; there are symptoms of radiation poisoning that you will feel long before you reach acute radiation poisoning (i.e., "the doctor tells you almost exactly how many hours you have left to live"). They take time to develop (at least a few hours) but you would start seeing, IIRC, things like skin rashes and irritation and various other symptoms that I can't remember.

The odds of anyone digging a trench getting a lethal dose of radiation in Chernobyl are exceedingly low unless they managed to dig a trench into some buried waste material that wasn't dumped back into the reactor building or something like that. And even then, still shouldn't be seeing lethal doses.

Russia can and will use it for a justification of further escalation, up to tactical nukes.

I get it, everybody thinks the worst of Russia, but let's not keep running straight to the scenario that ends the world. I doubt Putin wants to die, and there's only a small chance that choosing the literal nuclear option DOESN'T end with him and possibly much of the world (or at least much of Russia) dead.

[Strongpoint]

I get it, everybody thinks the worst of Russia, but let's not keep running straight to the scenario that ends the world. I doubt Putin wants to die, and there's only a small chance that choosing the literal nuclear option DOESN'T end with him and possibly much of the world (or at least much of Russia) dead.

1) Putin is quite safe in his underground bunker
2) I don't think that the world will be - let's turn Russia into glass (and get retaliation) should Russia merely use few dozen tactical nukes.

[Random_Dragon]

Given Putin's likely to ramp up the warcrimes either way, this might be the non-NATO equivalent of that "risk nuclear war actually stepping in now, or he's gonna do even worse shit later" worry I've had before. If Ukraine is in a position to actually go on the offensive, it'll definitely risk escalating things more, but if there's no signs that Putin's going to actually stop (and that he can't be stopped internally), then it may be a required bit of pressure and risk.

Though that does mean the risk of Russian civilian casualties as well, but as I've also said before. War's war, and war sucks for basically everyone but the people at the top profiting from it, whether it be from sanctions of violence it's all going to affect the ordinary people disproportionately. A dead Russian, Ukrainian, soldier or civilian, is a dead human all the same. The only thing close to a "good" outcome in a shitty situation like this is whether any given death is worth more than one death prevented in the future. :/

I get it, everybody thinks the worst of Russia, but let's not keep running straight to the scenario that ends the world. I doubt Putin wants to die, and there's only a small chance that choosing the literal nuclear option DOESN'T end with him and possibly much of the world (or at least much of Russia) dead.

Once again, a number of dangerous precedents for future military actions have already been set. We're at the point where, if Russia doesn't properly given in and admit defeat (ideally with Putin on the end of a rope, but even if he stays in power being forced to accept status quo ante bellum will color the lessons being learned here), then this is just going to keep happening, and not just to Ukraine. Eventually either a line that can't be crossed will be crossed, and we get WWIII anyway, or we slide into something much darker than that.

We've already reached the point where the only hope is that what is happening now actually gets us the absolute best possible outcomes. Any less than that, and we'll already be stuck in a "risk WWIII by intervening NOW, or else WWIII's gonna happen anyway later on, and probably on Putin's terms" situation before we can even react to it.

[King Zultan]

I've always been under the impression that we'd get WWIII eventually no matter what, also I have a feeling that Putin isn't 100% required for it to happen.

[Random_Dragon]

I've always been under the impression that we'd get WWIII eventually no matter what, also I have a feeling that Putin isn't 100% required for it to happen.

Basically that. Here's roughly my thoughts on the possible ways things could go. Basically stuff I've already said but tried to put a bit more thought into explaining and underlining the possibilities.

Spoiler: the rant (click to show/hide)

1. The sanctions and Ukraine's defense actually work, and Russia caves. If Putin either ends up overthrown or restrained by much-needed reforms, great. All that matters here is the end result is effectively an end to the war without it escalating to anything nuclear, and Putin does not get anything meaningful out of it. Depending on which factor played the biggest role, this teaches the world one of two lessons. Either it tells us that sanctions can actually work to stop a war, or it tells us that a non-nuclear country can win a conventional war against a nuclear power. The former is a massive boon towards making war no longer the favored tool of foreign policy. The latter risks emboldening smaller aggressive states, but the tradeoff is it reduces pressure on nuclear weapons as a priority for said states, and undermines confidence in the US, Russia, and China that the three of us can just do whatever we want to smaller countries.

2. If none of the above happen, we're past any "good" outcomes so ranking really just becomes a matter of "how do you least want to suffer" at this point. So in this case I'm putting military intervention to force Russia to stop their shit at number two. This could take the form of NATO saying "fuck this, you've done enough damage" or it could be Ukraine going on the offensive. If we hypothetically get either version of this to succeed without triggering nuclear, then consolation prize to us I guess. But even then, this tells the world that sanctions do not work, meaning in the grim darkness of the future there is Only War. If NATO manages this without nuclear war, it tells us only a superpower can stop another superpower. If Ukraine manages to pull this off, it still tells us only senseless loss of human life will solve our problems, but gives us a sort of evil twin to the latter lesson in outcome one, in that a smaller nation can win against a superpower if they're willing to repay blood for blood. Needless to say, if either triggers WWIII then RIP civilization as we know it, but...

3. Suppose Russia gets what it wants out of Ukraine. Even if you stop the story right there and say "and Putin lived happily ever after" now we've set a precedent: superpowers can just walk all over non-nuclear countries, everything we've worked for since the end of WWII was for nothing, just as the League of Nations failed us. In practice, now we're set on a collision course with WWIII, in almost all certainty. Putin will not stop, the bloodshed will continue, and either NATO will finally throw some nukes after a country that matters to them gets invaded, or Russia finally decides that if no other warcrime has been punished, why not strike first? Either way, the world as we know it learns what may be its final lesson.

4. And finally, there's the lingering death of our peace-loving civilization. Suppose Russia just keeps picking apart other countries. Maybe NATO steps up its own brinkmanship and floods Europe with fresh nuclear weapons, and anyone caught between superpowers will hunger for nukes. The world will have only one lesson left to learn: there is no line that cannot be crossed, no excess that will be punished, so long as you have nuclear weapons. If this mentality is left unchecked, we'll slowly slide into a new era of militarism, imperialism, and nuclear proliferation. To refuse to become a nuclear power becomes tantamount to suicide, to object to your enemy arming themselves becomes tantamount to genocide. Whoever is left that can't deter attacks will be picked apart by whoever pleases, and the world will already know that the Powers That Be can't do anything useful without destroying themselves. Statistically, some distant slip-up that causes WWIII will become inevitable the more countries develop their own nukes. Global civilization in any useful sense will have already been long-dead by the time that happens, all that'll be left is its cremation.

[Strongpoint]

No matter what happens next, we will see a wave of militarization of the world, it is certain. Many countries will double\triple their military budgets and enlarge their armies.

I also expect very good times for radical Islamism. The Middle East will be hit by growing food prices, Central Asia will experience the effects of the Russian recession, their economies are quite dependent on Russia. Many countries with Muslim population will face political destabilization and it is a perfect breeding ground for ISIS\Taliban and others. Russia itself has at least 10M Muslims and most of those live in poorer parts of Russia.

[King Zultan]

Oh boy more terrorism, just what the future needs.

[Quarque]

2) I don't think that the world will be - let's turn Russia into glass (and get retaliation) should Russia merely use few dozen tactical nukes.

You see, this idea is just wrong. If America uses a significant portion of their nuclear arsenal, most of the world population is going to die. It doesn't matter who they bomb and it doesn't matter if they shoot back or not. Short version:

1. the sky goes dark for about 10 years (nuclear winter) => crop growth failure everywhere => mass starvation and chaos
2. even if you survive this, the ozone layer is nearly completely destroyed as well. The nuclear winter is followed by a world-wide lethal bath of hard UV radiation.

If you don't believe me, check the literature. Wikipedia is a good starting point, or check this for example: https://thebulletin.org/2012/09/self-assured-destruction-the-climate-impacts-of-nuclear-war/

In fact, if America or Russia are going to use their nukes, the most rational way to do it would be to aim at their own cities, to allow their own citizens  the mercy of a quick death. That is how mad MAD is.