Posted on 04/27/2022 4:57:23 PM PDT by RandFan
Any country trying to intervene in the Ukraine war will face a "lightning-fast" response, Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned.
"We have all the tools no-one can boast of... we will use them if necessary", he said, in what is seen as a reference to ballistic missiles and nuclear arms.
Ukraine's allies have stepped up the supply of weapons, with the US vowing to make sure Ukraine defeats Russia.
Western officials say Russia is being hampered in its efforts in the east.
Last week, Russia launched a major offensive to seize the Donbas region after withdrawing from areas around the capital Kyiv.
But according to one official, Russian forces are "finding it difficult to overcome the staunch Ukrainian resistance and they are suffering losses".
In another development, the European Commission has accused Russia of blackmail after Moscow cut off gas exports to Poland and Bulgaria.
The Commission's President, Ursula von der Leyen said it showed Russia's "unreliability" as a supplier.
The Kremlin said Russia had been forced into the action by the "unfriendly steps" of Western nations.
Gazprom's cut-off follows Poland and Bulgaria's refusal to pay for gas in Russian roubles - a demand made by President Vladimir Putin in March, which was designed to shore up the faltering currency battered by Western sanctions.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
it really is that simple.
so many freepers are quite ok with that risk, or dismiss it.
this was mentioned to me as a good example of mass formation psychosis. i will need to read more, but having over half of FR agreeing and in lockstep with the WEF, administration, soros, etc., certainly raises eyebrows.
we are even bragging about our air defence measures from day one of the invasion.
by itself ukraine would have been occupied weeks ago.
When.have Marjorue Taylor Green & AOC ever voted together?
“This war won’t end this year - Russia will not lose to Ukraine”
Conscript Armies in dictatorships can be brittle - at some point, they turn around and shoot their commissars, like the Chinese in Korea, or just park their tanks and let Boris Yeltsin use them for a podium.
That point is a bit of wildcard.
NATO has clearly decided to fund and operate a counter-offensive by he Ukrainians. A new standing Command has been established to supervise it, with an American 3 Star in charge. Armor and artillery are going in by the boatload now, not just an airlift flow of plane loads. S. 3522 - The Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act of 2022, Passed 100-0 in the US Senate, and was passed out of committee in the House today (27 April). Restrictions were just lifted on giving the Ukrainians real time operational (targeting) Intel.
There is a new level of hurt heading Russia’s way, in both Military losses, and economic losses. By June the Russian financial defaults, bankruptcies and unemployment will start obviously mounting. Putin and Lavrov might be all for everyone else paying whatever it costs, but everyone else will likely get fed up with that at some point. As the Europeans replace Russian oil and gas, budget shortfalls (and a crashing economy) are going to set the ruble printing presses into hyperdrive. I am not sure that past war games simulated the kinds of economic effects we are now looking at, and how that will rock the hopes and dreams of a population that has grown used to seeing a better future ahead for the last 20 years.
Putin has betrayed the Russians’ dream for prosperity, and that will become painfully apparent over the coming months. They are also now clearly heading for an artillery pounding in the next couple of months that they were very unlikely to have planned on.
At some point the public, and/or the conscript kids being sent into the meatgrinder, are going to reach their breaking point.
Get out of here with your bogus “WEF shill” accusations
FR is a forum that supports “freedom” and “liberty”
so don’t be surprised when most of us here support the innocent country that was illegally invaded by a monster
Russia offers the opposite of “freedom” and “liberty”, that’s why we don’t like it, dummy
*** If overseas energy prices skyrocket faster than they do here, is that a bad thing? ***
The number one importer of oil to the US is Canada. Can you name number 2 and 3?
James Baker in 1990 said : “ Not one inch East “ , re: NATO expansion . Proves USA ( as if we needed any ) that Yanks cannot be trusted . Gorbachev and Reagan ended the Cold War and then Gorby and Russia got stabbed in the back by Uncle Sam . Not a pretty picture if you ask me .
having over half of FR agreeing and in lockstep with the WEF, administration, soros, etc., certainly raises eyebrows.
***What’s raising eyebrows is that a bunch of FR posters think that invading one’s neighbor over some bullshiite ethnographics makes no sense, but taking their oil & gas reserves does make sense.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4050958/posts
Plus, since the Ukes gave up their nukes in the Budapest Agreement, we have betrayed them and they’ve been invaded twice.
Budapest Agreement, Accession to the ratified United Nations Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty assuring Ukrainian borders and sovereignty https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4044080/posts?page=28#28
“ We are sending in some big ass artilery and artilary-defense weapons in the next few weeks.”
“Which is why Russia is interdicting the Ukrainian railways in western Ukraine.”
I’m sorry, but that is just wishful thinking. The new equipment is already arriving, and the flow has ramped up to a new order of magnitude. The West has plenty of Heavy Equipment Transporters to haul tanks and self propelled artillery over the roads. The new howitzers (M777) are ultralight by historical norms, using lots of titanium. Reportedly, over half have already been delivered.
The time for big talk about overwhelming Russian Military power has passed. The Ukraine wasn’t defeated in 72 hours. The 40 mile convoy was not unstoppable. The Chechen hit squads didn’t gut the Ukrainian President like a lamb. The highly Touted offensive into the Donbas after the withdrawal from the North was nothing like Field Marshal Zhukov in WWII.
The reality is that the finest force that Russia could muster was unable to take the Country, they have been degraded a solid 25% since then, and are a proportionally lower quality force today, due to the type of replacements and lack of time to properly retrofit and train units that had been torn apart.
What is coming now is not some stopgap measure to slow the Russian advance - it is scientifically calculated to eradicate the Russian forces. It is not rocket science, it is math, and the West has decided that it is willing to pay the bill.
Enough said.
world is not a fairybook place.
great powers premise (mersheimer) reflects how the real world works. american history is full of it.
I appear to have struck a nerve, though. look in the mirror.
the real world isn’t a nice or fairybook place.
you may want to go to war with a nuclear power. I don’t, and I don’t think the biden administration getting to decide who runs a former SSR is worth the risk.
Hunter might, though. the other politician kids who got huge payouts from burisma etc. might too.
the folks touting the budapest agreement ignore this issue.
FR has become a screaming room of partisans on either side of the issue.
Mearsheimer predicted what we are living through now 8 years ago !
the real world isn’t a nice or fairybook place.
***Agreed. That’s why we don’t want to push people who have nuke knowledge, 15 nuke plants, nuke learnings from Chernobyl, nuke fissionable material, significant means of its design and production”, and who gave up weapons grade nukes ... to be pushed into a nuke corner, do we?
“After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Ukraine held about one third of the Soviet nuclear arsenal, the third largest in the world at the time, as well as significant means of its design and production. 130 UR-100N intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) with six warheads each, 46 RT-23 Molodets ICBMs with ten warheads apiece, as well as 33 heavy bombers, totaling approximately 1,700 warheads remained on Ukrainian territory. Formally, these weapons were controlled by the Commonwealth of Independent States.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Ukraine?msclkid=0bb191cec64d11ecb57261f061c0bba3
“In exchange for giving up its nuclear weapons, Ukraine received financial compensation, as well as the security assurances of the Budapest Memorandum.”
you may want to go to war with a nuclear power. I don’t,
***Then don’t CREATE one. Get nuclear nonproliferation right. And keep this thing CONVENTIONAL. Gigantic duhh factor.
and I don’t think the biden administration getting to decide who runs a former SSR is worth the risk.
***It is the weak-kneed Biden admin who invited the risk by projecting weakness rather than strength, just like his buttboy obambam.
Hunter might, though. the other politician kids who got huge payouts from burisma etc. might too.
***Straw argument. It is the people of Ukraine who are paying the price of this invasion, not the few politicos who have already escaped.
i cannot figure out your stance. we seem to agree on some things.
granting we are peons along for the ride here, like it or not
The posture of the US from the start of this has been openly belligerent. never seen anything like it in my lifetime. not a single peep about talks. we apparently don’t even talk to russia anymore?!
we immediately steal a third of a trillion dollars they had in reserves in the US and western banks. i know, it is frozen, but that can last decades or longer, or be spent by third parties (ukraine) down the road.
we were running their air defences from day 1, based on the nbc article. I would be money we were integral in sinking the moskva and the attacks on facilities inside russia. no opinion on the gazprom families that were killed, but if they were aligned with russia politically still...
we are escalating, bragging about it, and pushing them into a corner. this isn’t the kennedy team that managed to avoid nuclear war in the cuban missile crisis (though apparently that was still a heartbeat away, based on the russian sub incident). these jokers in washington now could not be less qualified, and may actually not care what happens to the US overall.
I think this is intended to get much worse. it can also solve the pesky election problem in november if it gets really bad.
what he didn’t predict, that I have seen, was that the US would push and actively operate inside ukraine so aggressively. we are trying to escalate a regional invasion of a smaller neighboring state into WW3 imo. we are doing it on purpose.
Putin is “cornered” by his pride. His “big powerful superpower” tail is getting handed to him - what he planned to be a 3 day blowout has turned into around 22K Russian troops dead and a crazy number of tanks, APCs, aircraft, etc. And even their Black Sea flagship...
Add in the world is watching the now easily-proven war crimes ranging from mass kidnappings of children (thousands that have been taken to Russian internment/re-education camps to supposedly be adopted by Russian families (these were not orphans)... hundreds of young girls who were raped and now are pregnant by Russian troops... and the civilians brutally executed with hands tied - in the streets.
Media’s created what we see playing out on FR. Also the Biden administration’s consistant efforts to divide people rather than approach a situation to discover the truth, facts or discern rightly.
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