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Ukraine illegally invaded by Putin's Russia
Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2022 8:09 pm
by Herdanos
I'm sure I'm not the only one looking at the situation in Ukraine with a whole lot of
My geopolitical knowledge is lacking - I understand (I think) why Russia wanted the Crimea (Sevastapol is the only warm weather seaport they have land access to right?) but can someone explain why they would want to full on invade the country?
Re: Ukraine
Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2022 8:32 pm
by Oblomov Boblomov
My understanding is that Putin thinks Ukraine will 'fall' to the West (NATO) unless he acts first to 'reclaim' it for the USSR... Russian Federation(?!), but I don't really know what I'm talking about.
Re: Ukraine
Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2022 8:38 pm
by Return_of_the_STAR
Herdanos wrote:I'm sure I'm not the only one looking at the situation in Ukraine with a whole lot of
My geopolitical knowledge is lacking - I understand (I think) why Russia wanted the Crimea (Sevastapol is the only warm weather seaport they have land access to right?) but can someone explain why they would want to full on invade the country?
Putin is pretending that it is about Russian security, creating space between russia and NATO however really Putin wants Ukraine as he sees it as part of russia and has never forgiven them for breaking away from russia when the Soviet Union collapsed. Prior to the Soviet Union Ukraine was part of the Russian federation for centuries, prior to that it was part of many other empires. They briefly managed to split after world war 1 but were again swollen up by the Soviets in WW2.
Putin was very vocal about reclaiming Ukraine during in the 90s before he came to power in Russia. So his intentions are quite clear.
There are a lot of russian ethnic and speaking people in Ukraine. Some of them may want to be part of Russia but it's also a democracy and presently the majority want to be independent and seem to want to move more to the west.
Re: Ukraine
Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2022 8:47 pm
by Nibble
That reminds me, I really do need to replay Alien Isolation (quickly).
Re: Ukraine
Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2022 8:53 pm
by floydfreak
Re: Ukraine
Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2022 9:30 pm
by Mommy Christmas
Some mush on the wireless said if it turned into a full out war, there wouldn't be much left of Russia after a few hours as NATO were so much stronger.
Not really what I wanted to hear.
Re: Ukraine
Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2022 10:02 pm
by Victor Mildew
OPEN THE GYMS!!!!!
Re: Ukraine
Posted: Sat Feb 12, 2022 10:21 pm
by VlaSoul
Ukraine has historically been part of russia and iirc the eastern varangians who settled russia did so from ukraine, hence the russian federation wants it back on the historical pretence that it has been a constituent region of their predecessor states. More important is the strategic value; of course one aspect is that crimea provides a warm water port for russia to implicitly threaten a naval ability, though of course this wouldn't be enough to build up one that could challenge the US. Russia likely accepts that it's a land power though, and their western border has a lot of flat open land especially in the "warmer" parts which poses a security issue for them. The Dneiper river that bisects ukraine presents a much more defensible border than what they have now so it is the thing russia wants the most now. A full invasion would be enacted in order to claim the land east of this river, what is to the west would probably not be occupied for long as defending it would be difficult and its not a good border.
I could have feasibly seen russia pushing westwards to the dneiper a few years ago and then stopping there once they had the east secured, but now with NATO intervention looming over them I think it's more likely that they'll just hold on to crimea for the forseeable future and threaten the ability to invade ukraine as opposed to actually doing it. This is because russia stands no chance in direct warfare with NATO, or probably even with the US alone, and they know it. Even if the russians did successfully invade ukraine it might be more trouble than its worth because the ukrainian government and people are ultranationalists so it would be very costly to hold.
Re: Ukraine
Posted: Sun Feb 13, 2022 8:03 am
by OrangeRKN
Oblomov Boblomov wrote:My understanding is that Putin thinks Ukraine will 'fall' to the West (NATO) unless he acts first to 'reclaim' it for the USSR... Russian Federation(?!), but I don't really know what I'm talking about.
This is nothing more than Russian propaganda
Re: Ukraine
Posted: Sun Feb 13, 2022 8:10 am
by andretmzt
VlaSoul wrote:Ukraine has historically been part of russia and iirc the eastern varangians who settled russia did so from ukraine, hence the russian federation wants it back on the historical pretence that it has been a constituent region of their predecessor states. More important is the strategic value; of course one aspect is that crimea provides a warm water port for russia to implicitly threaten a naval ability, though of course this wouldn't be enough to build up one that could challenge the US. Russia likely accepts that it's a land power though, and their western border has a lot of flat open land especially in the "warmer" parts which poses a security issue for them. The Dneiper river that bisects ukraine presents a much more defensible border than what they have now so it is the thing russia wants the most now. A full invasion would be enacted in order to claim the land east of this river, what is to the west would probably not be occupied for long as defending it would be difficult and its not a good border.
I think it was also a very important area for food production in the Soviet Union, but who knows whether having food security into the future is part of Russia's thinking.
Re: Ukraine
Posted: Sun Feb 13, 2022 8:19 am
by Moggy
Mommy wrote:Some mush on the wireless said if it turned into a full out war, there wouldn't be much left of Russia after a few hours as NATO were so much stronger.
Not really what I wanted to hear.
Re: Ukraine
Posted: Sun Feb 13, 2022 8:32 am
by VlaSoul
andretmzt wrote:VlaSoul wrote:Ukraine has historically been part of russia and iirc the eastern varangians who settled russia did so from ukraine, hence the russian federation wants it back on the historical pretence that it has been a constituent region of their predecessor states. More important is the strategic value; of course one aspect is that crimea provides a warm water port for russia to implicitly threaten a naval ability, though of course this wouldn't be enough to build up one that could challenge the US. Russia likely accepts that it's a land power though, and their western border has a lot of flat open land especially in the "warmer" parts which poses a security issue for them. The Dneiper river that bisects ukraine presents a much more defensible border than what they have now so it is the thing russia wants the most now. A full invasion would be enacted in order to claim the land east of this river, what is to the west would probably not be occupied for long as defending it would be difficult and its not a good border.
I think it was also a very important area for food production in the Soviet Union, but who knows whether having food security into the future is part of Russia's thinking.
It was important for industry too, and iirc ukraine is still one of the most industrialised countries.
Re: Ukraine
Posted: Sun Feb 13, 2022 9:58 am
by hamm sandwich
Not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing in terms of Scotland’s chances of making it to the World Cup. Ideally the Ukraine side will be conscripted and we can play their under 15s
Re: Ukraine
Posted: Sun Feb 13, 2022 9:58 am
by hamm sandwich
And beat them on penalties
Re: Ukraine
Posted: Sun Feb 13, 2022 10:17 am
by Moggy
hamm sandwich wrote:Not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing in terms of Scotland’s chances of making it to the World Cup. Ideally the Ukraine side will be conscripted and we can play their under 15s
If they bring back the USSR, there will be fewer teams for Scotland to lose against.
But they probably still will.
Re: Ukraine
Posted: Sun Feb 13, 2022 2:52 pm
by Vermilion
hamm sandwich wrote:Not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing in terms of Scotland’s chances of making it to the World Cup. Ideally the Ukraine side will be conscripted and we can play their under 15s
...and even then, they'll still lose.
Re: Ukraine
Posted: Sun Feb 13, 2022 5:30 pm
by Alvin Flummux
So, they want to seize half of Ukraine, and half of Kyiv, because they're feeling insecure about a border they share with a peaceful neighbor? Seriously? What a pathetic excuse.
What's next, expanding up to the Carpathian Mountains just because that's a bit more defensible?
Re: Ukraine
Posted: Sun Feb 13, 2022 5:39 pm
by Moggy
Alvin Flummux wrote:
What's next, expanding up to the Carpathian Mountains just because that's a bit more defensible?
Re: Ukraine
Posted: Sun Feb 13, 2022 5:57 pm
by Preezy
So... chances of this being a World War 3 flashpoint?
Re: Ukraine
Posted: Sun Feb 13, 2022 6:07 pm
by Peter Crisp
Preezy wrote:So... chances of this being a World War 3 flashpoint?
It better bloody not be or I'll write a rude letter to Putin telling him how cross I am that I'm about to snuff-it in the end of the world just as Star Trek is getting good again.
strawberry floating inconsiderate!!!!!!!!!!!!
