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[Starver]

but Russia's claims are a mixture of outright nonsense (in several categories they claim the Ukranians have lost more equipment than they started the war with), and photos of the same wreck from different angles to make it look like multiple wrecks.

I say we need to coin a variation of the German Tank Problem and call it the Russian Tank Problem. (Or Ukrainian, but I prefer to lay the issue down as a problem for Russia, as opposed to posed by the Germans.)

My personal headcanon is all the exploding factories, dysfunctional tanks, cancelled airshows are the result of the work of one Nutjob Pavel, a man who has been touring Russia for a decade to satiate his compulsive need to strategically loosen nuts on vital equipment.

From day 1, I must admit that I've been willing into existence some Avengers-level super-capable person or team[1] that would do something minor but widespread like (and this how specific I was) loosening or removing the nuts on Russian vehicle's front-left wheel in individually plausible ways but on every one that advanced onto Ukrainian territory.

Perhaps mix it up (loosening the connectors on the right track-laying vehicle's track, deflating the nose-wheel of planes, make something really rattle in a helicopter, replace the explosives in missiles and munitions with custard) but always not (intrinsically) lethally, just hyper-troublesome to make a point.


Yes, the psychology behind this is very much "I'd want someone this absurdly capable to also be absurdly benign". Is that a huge pie in the sky, just above the porcine aviator and slightly below the bovine currently in trans-lunar transfer orbit? I'm actually not sure whether it'd be a good idea to grant me the godlike powers needed to accomplish such feats (or allow to accomplish, through proxies I thus enabled), because it's neither full disruptive power unleashed in time to actually save everyone (of all stripes) nor guaranteed to remain so idealistically benevolent.

But it's how my mind works. The not-particularly-dark bits[2] of my mind, anyway. And drowning in pure fantacism.

[1] Doctor Strange could do it, I'm sure Stark would have the drones to do it, Ant-Man would have a good way of doing it, a reality-changing skill would of course work... Not sure about the 'big hitters' like Hulk or Thor would have the capability to be so subtle. Moving over to DCU, Batman would have been prepared to do it, I could see several others of the League as useful, and of course the speedsters from both genres would find it simple (if tiring?) to accomplish in an instant. Yes, I've (wishfully) thought more about this than is healthy. Unless it's the one way I could have helped by actually making it happen by psychic force. Maybe it just needs a few more people thinking about it before our putative Hero(es) realise it's a thing they should do.

[2] Meaning that I know that there are the counterpart bits that I also know about. Smaller, but significant, and I don't think I have the Vimes-like ability to internally "watch the watcher". Yet to be practically tested, of course. Unless it was and the decision involved the capability being retroactively reverted to a time before my monomaniacal pursuit of World Domination. (I'm not doing much to convince anyone to grant me access to such amazingly all-encompassing powers, am I?)

[Cthulhu]

There's all this crazy stuff going down in Russia and the temptation is to pin murders and stuff on Putin, but I dunno. People gotta know this is the end, if you're a big dude you're probably making your preliminary moves for what comes after.

The greatest spy thriller in history is being written live in Russia right now and we'll never get to read it.

[Strongpoint]

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/05/12/europe/russia-ship-stolen-ukraine-grain-intl-cmd/index.html

Russia is actively selling stolen grain. I am even happy that they are doing this, it will lessen the impact of this war on poor countries.

Of course, with the way how international law works, I fail to see any realistic punishment for Russia any time soon...

[chaotic skies]

I'm honestly all for making the punitive measures massive to make sure this doesn't happen again, but I don't know what those would look like without major civilian suffering. Which is arguably a punitive measure of its own, but one I'm against - no need to punish the people stuck on Putin's Wild Ride.

You could take down Putin and other government/military leaders, but a power vacuum of that scale is terrifying, and such attempts have failed to catch everyone in the past.

You could keep the current sanctions, but you either starve the Russian populous until they overthrow their government (which could be very messy given the current administration's willingness to deploy nuclear weapons), starve them until they break, or starve them until they get mad and lash out at the outside world - it all depends on the propaganda inside the country.

I guess you could do a post-WWII Japan type of deal where you force the government to match someone else's systems and beliefs, but it's not guaranteed to work with a country so big.

I don't know enough to weigh in on the war other than 'war bad,' and I barely know enough about international history and law to know what the consequences for the Russian admin will be, but I can see why it's a complicated and hard thing to figure out.

It makes me sad that the most effective deterrents for this type of thing likely involve huge civilian casualties.

[Strongpoint]

I'm honestly all for making the punitive measures massive to make sure this doesn't happen again, but I don't know what those would look like without major civilian suffering. Which is arguably a punitive measure of its own, but one I'm against - no need to punish the people stuck on Putin's Wild Ride.

I understand your position. We always look at the shit some country does and separate the government from the nation. It looks even more reasonable in the case of authoritarian governments.

Problem is that Russians ARE too blame with only exception being  several %s of adults + children. Russians are guilty as a nation. And they should pay for their crime as a nation. Otherwise, they will never learn that war is bad and war crimes are even worse.

[Cthulhu]

I disagree with collective punishment of the Russian people but also innocent people are already dying because there's a war going on and that's what happens.  There's no way to navigate this situation that doesn't lead to massive human suffering, but I'd prefer we take the path that ends in Russia not destroying Ukraine.

Putin will not be deterred from a course he's already taken, but the sanctions will eventually (I've heard Q3 this year is when the measures he's taking to keep the economy afloat will run out of runway) destroy Russia's capacity to wage war against Ukraine. 

[Strongpoint]

I disagree with collective punishment of the Russian people but also innocent people are already dying because there's a war going on and that's what happens.  There's no way to navigate this situation that doesn't lead to massive human suffering, but I'd prefer we take the path that ends in Russia not destroying Ukraine. 

There will be no need in some special collective punishment. It will happen naturally. I have seen good, kind, well-educated and morally stable with post-war PTSD from the war of lower intensity than the current one. Not a pretty sight, people need time and care to return to semi-normality.

Now imagine Russian soldiers returning home. Those weren't the best of people before the war and now... after tasting war crimes...

In Russia, there will be no hotlines, there will be no crowdfunded and\or governmental programs to help them to reintegrate. There will be no respect or even some kind of meaningful social benefits (look at Russian ww2 veterans, Afghanistan veterans, Chechen Wars veterans...). And there will be a recession, so no jobs either.

Also, all of Russian radicals won't get what they want. Even if half of Ukraine will be annexed and some kind of ceasefire will be achieved, they'll see it as a defeat. They'll want more. They need complete destruction of the Ukrainian nation, nothing less. They'll start looking for the answer for the eternal Russian question "Who is guilty?"

I am sure that Russia will see a civil war soonish. This or they will start WW3

[Grim Portent]

I could easily see elements of the Russian military going all post WW1 Germany Freikorp on things. An attempt at demilitarisation is going to leave lots of weapons in the hands of former soldiers, those soldiers are likely to form paramilitary groups, and those groups are going to resist various possible movements for social change in Russia. This either ends with a new dictatorship as the forces for change fold before paramilitary violence, or with a long drawn out civil war that could end in any of a number of ways and be of any size.

[nenjin]

I see it going one of two ways.

1. Sanctions economically cripple Russia over the longer-term, and the country essentially becomes the European version of NK. No one will trade with them, no one will talk to them and they're forced into even more dictatorial measures to keep the population from revolting.

2. Sanctions economically cripple Russia over the longer-term, and the country essentially becomes the European version of NK. The population decides they've had enough of this shit and there's a coup. Russia faces a civil war between the remnants of the central authority and whatever factions rise up to attempt to take the reins. The rest of the world finds out about it in detail a couple years later.

While this would suck for the Russian populace, I prefer both of those to the rest of the world going "Well, I guess there's nothing we can do. Guess we'll go back to business as usual!" I don't want a future where Putin can continue to participate on the world stage as a first world nation after this fucking atrocity that had no reason to happen other than greed, paranoia and nationalism.

[heydude6]

If we’re brainstorming what to do to Russia after the war ends, why don’t we just denazify it like we denazified post-WW2 Germany?

[nenjin]

If we’re brainstorming what to do to Russia after the war ends, why don’t we just denazify it like we denazified post-WW2 Germany?

Too much bitter blood. Overseeing the de-Nazification of Russia would just entrench the anti-Western sentiments already present in the Russian cultural mindset. And who the hell wants responsibility for policing Russia? If they're this savage outside their own borders, imagine what they'd do when they're "defending" their own soil against foreigners.

[martinuzz]

If we’re brainstorming what to do to Russia after the war ends, why don’t we just denazify it like we denazified post-WW2 Germany?

You mean so they will hang their collective heads in shame for 4 generations? That would require most of their men of working age being killed or crippled in battle, a lot of their cities carpet-firebombed, and their women raped by the Russians. At least that's how the Allies denazified Germany.

But yeah, I agree that we cannot let Putin and Russian authorities get away with this and continue business as usual with Russia.

[Strongpoint]

If we’re brainstorming what to do to Russia after the war ends, why don’t we just denazify it like we denazified post-WW2 Germany?

You mean invade Russia, carpet-bomb Russian cities and place occupation forces in the ruins of Moscow? Russian nukes say "nope"




I don't think that Russia can go full North Korea. Yes, Stalin managed to build a huge totalitarian state but he had a strong unifying ideology to do this. Modern Russia doesn't. "Russians are the greatest people ever" is a bad unifying ideology for a multiethnic country of a huge size.

[nenjin]

"Russians are the greatest people ever" is a bad unifying ideology for a multiethnic country of a huge size.

Someone should probably tell Russia this. Although they seem to play pretty fast and loose with their definition of "ethnic Russian."

Besides, if you can't culturally unite your people under the banner of shared heritage, you can always unite them under the banner of virtually everyone being your enemy. Which is how NK operates. And when you've, ya know, made yourself the least popular 1st world nation, that's not a hard sell.

[Strongpoint]

Someone should probably tell Russia this. Although they seem to play pretty fast and loose with their definition of "ethnic Russian."

Well, Russian propaganda plays the "if you speak Russian you are a Russian. Even if you disagree." card very heavily. But Russian population is another story

A few days ago, I watched a youtube video of Muslims of Moscow praying on the streets during Eid al-Fitr (Moscow has only 6 mosques...) and comments are... full of islamophobia, racial slurs and stuff like "while our guys are fighting against nazism, those parasites are doing nothing useful."

Sure, youtube comments are youtube comments, one of the vilest places of the internet, but tensions between ethnic groups of Russia are very, very real and detoriation of the economy won't make it better.