WHAT'S GOING ON?

LIVE MAP AS OF FEB 24 2022 11:58:00 EST

TIMELINE (US DATES)

FEB 22 2022

• Vladimir Putin recognizes the breakaway states of Donetsk and Luhansk , sends troops for peacekeeping purposes

FEB 23

• Vladimir Putin announces "special military operation in Ukraine," moving troops in from Crimea, Belarus, and Russia

FEB 24

• MOEX Russian Index falls by 50% in response to invasion
• Russian Forces capture Chernobyl
• G7 confirms sanction package against Russia
• Russian paratroopers and mobile armore land in Kyiv Airport
• Russia offers negotiations to Ukraine, neutrality and demilitarization for peace

good idea

War

Nooooo,, putin not gonna do it. It's just biden talking s***.

Can somebody explain to me why Taiwan is now trending too

taiwan is another territory whos sovereignty is contested globally that the US has interest in escalating conflict in

from a mutual who is in the army the US has had their eyes locked on a conflict with russia or china for the past year or two and with one underway who knows what the US has in plan for the second

In

There’s really no winning here, everyone’s basically f***ed in any outcome

Putin is an imperialist crony.

Just copying my post from the other thread responding to somebody who asked why Putin cares so much to invade and why NATO plays a part for if people come itt wonderwing why:

NATO is a military alliance that was formed in case that the West would possibly ever have to go to war with Russia during the cold war. Article 5 says that if one NATO member is attacked, it's regarded as an attack against all NATO members.

With the taking down of the Berlin wall, the US promised to Gorbachev would not move "one inch forward" to the East. A promise that has not been held as many other Eastern European countries have joined NATO.

The reason Ukrainian NATO membership is such a threat is that Ukraine is right at their borders. The black sea fleet in the Crimea was Russia's only fleet that was available year round, which is why they annexed the Crimea in 2014 after the US-backed coup in Ukraine, because they would lose access to that fleet which they see as crucial for their security.

In addition, Ukraine has also hinted at "liberating" (ie invading) the Crimea, if Ukraine does that as a NATO member, it's essentially the same as entirety of the West invading the Crimea, as Putin said here:

Right now it, Putin isn't gonna annex all of Ukraine, but he's gonna attempt to install a puppet leader who won't pursue NATO membership and probably integrate the republics of the Donbass into the Russian Federation eventually, unless there will be diplomacy and a neutrality agreement with Ukraine and NATO.

It was also always clear that Putin was a Russian nationalist who had a lot of nostalgia for the Russian empire. He always criticized Lenin for giving nations that were part of the Czarist empire like Ukraine too much autonomy and giving republics in the USSR the right to secede. Which adds fuel to the fire.

So that's why Putin is trying to prevent this, he's taking it very far and taking a by any means necessary approach to it. Combine that with his attitudes about the Russian empire, and it's not a total surprise that he would want to do this to prevent what he regards as a region part of the former Russian empire which he dearly misses joining a hostile military alliance, but it is surprising that he's willing to face the repercussions that this will bring for Russia, which will be a lot.

Respectable points open to debate

Russia is already bordered by NATO in the baltics. Moving across Ukraine would bring it right up to bordering Poland, Romania, and Czech Republic. All nato

The nato explanatjon holds serious water but I doubt this is the sole motive. Putin in his speech cast doubts on the legitimacy of the baltics, fjnland and Ukraine as states

It's not the sole motive but I think it's the main one, we were never even close to this happening before 2014. Also Putin isn't gonna annex Ukraine, he'll just install a pro-Russian leader.

so there's almost no way the EU doesn't kick out Belarus and sanction them following this right?

how do you figure Russia is f***ed?

as usual the people in the government will be fine just as they are elsewhere (look at Syria as a good example of this). The vast majority of people who actually live there are screwed though. Usually sanctions are lead almost solely by the US and everyone else just follows but may push back (look at the initial push back and forth on Nordstream originally - Germany denying US influence for a bit); any notion of that is completely gone now, the EU will levy sanctions to the same tune as the US with little wiggle room. The Russian economy is already and has already been terrible for years and most of the population does not live well compared to contemporary surrounding countries. The economy getting crippled even more there is unimaginable no less for a country of their scale and size. Virtually any international project with any actor other than like, China and ME/South Asia countries (none of which bolster the same economic trade-off as US/EU except China) is just dead in the water now. They definitely consolidate domestic power and pose a challenge to global hegemony, but it's in light of them destroying more or less their own stability. I mean even if they completely take all of Ukraine, they can't actually economically or logistically support expanding out the country. Ukraine does not add anything to their economy except more mouths to feed and supplylines to maintain, and they can barely do this for their own country already - and this is on top of having to them recover from being essentially outcasted in terms of sanctions. At that point the country will essentially just become completely and solely dependent on China, which is anything but a win for Russia themselves.

I don't believe Belarus is an eu country? Unless you mean some other eu affiliated structure

But even so I'm unsure the mechanism to kick out a member exists

Belarus is part of the EU's eastern partnership/EaP, that's what i meant sorry

edit: my bad, it looks like they may have been kicked out already awhile ago, wasn't aware of that. this will definitely just lead to more sanctions then

Ukraine does not add anything to their economy except more mouths to feed and supplylines to maintain, and they can barely do this for their own country already

doesnt this help tho since Ukraine is the breadbasket of Europe, getting a Russian friendly leader in Ukraine would be a huge boost then

If they fully take Ukraine, it's unlikely the US/EU would just continue to consider it Ukraine though as its current form, and with basically Syria-level sanctions (from what it seems currently, maybe it'll be less, who knows) on Russia itself, it doesn't really matter at that point. Like if the plow into Kyiv and just straight up overthrow the government everyone will just consider it an extension of Russia rather than recognizing it as Ukraine anymore - which is of course essentially even more of a tragedy for the Ukrainian people obviously because they'll get f***ed the most, but as we've seen across other heavily sanctioned countries (Syria again as a good example), the international community doesn't really give a s*** about individual wellbeing in these decisions.