Stumuz2 wrote: ↑03 Apr 2021, 10:01
Quiz for the boys and girls.
Which is the only country in the world to have given up its nuclear weapons and subsequently been invaded?
Interesting question - Belarus & Kazakhstan are the only others to have given them up ?
All these weapons technically belonged to the USSR/CIS....
Suspect that any of these countries would have been in even deeper doo-doo before now if they'd kept them....
Russia would have defo stopped them spending the billions needed to repurpose them before any could be pointed at Moscow....
Biden is warning that Russia is massing troops on the border and may well invade Ukraine whilst Europe is distracted by the migrant crisis on the Belarus border, and COP. I agree it fits Putin's modus operandi
Would he only invade the Russian speaking part of Ukraine? I suspect he would do that as he would then be able to justify the move by saying that he was only bringing Russians back into Russia and if he invaded the whole of the Ukraine he would be incorporating a significant number of people who would actively fight against his regime. Leaving that bit of Ukraine between him and Europe would also leave a buffer strip which could keep NATO and Russian troops apart.
Sure, occupy the Russian speaking areas, hold (and win 80/20) a 'free and fair' unification referendum and it's job done. Won't be much fighting or any western response.
clv101 wrote: ↑12 Nov 2021, 14:49
Sure, occupy the Russian speaking areas, hold (and win 80/20) a 'free and fair' unification referendum and it's job done. Won't be much fighting or any western response.
That could be Putin's thoughts on the matter. Or should that be "hopes".
I expect not an overt full scale invasion, but perhaps a "peoples uprising" demanding an end to "Western imperialism, and a return to Russia" followed perhaps by a Russian backed "international peacekeeping mission"
"Installers and owners of emergency diesels must assume that they will have to run for a week or more"
I don't expect Russia to invade. More likely IMO is Russia responding to Ukrainian initiated aggression. The interesting question is how much support, if any Ukraine will receive from US/EU/Nato. Maybe not as much as they'd like.
Russia Demands Immediate “Urgent” Talks with NATO, says “the alternative is a military-technical and military response from Russia.”
Earlier this week, Russia’s Foreign Ministry handed a list of demands to visiting U.S. diplomat Karen Donfried.
The list included demands that would reduce NATO’s influence over post-Soviet states. The demands urged NATO to abandon all military activities in Ukraine and Eastern Europe, Caucasus, and Central Asia. Moreover, Russia also demanded a guarantee from NATO that it would not allow Ukraine to join NATO in the future.
"We fail to mandate economic sanity because our brains are addled by....compassion." (Garrett Hardin)
Any country is free to apply to join NATO and the fact that many, previously in the Soviet "Zone of Influence", are is annoying the hell out of Putin so he is threatening them instead of wooing them. The bullying Russian Bear is the reason that they are applying to join the protection of NATO in the first place and further bullying isn't going to make them change their minds. But then Putin's whole modus operandi is about bullying so he won't see where he is going wrong.
