My biggest question is who pays to fix all this damage. The Russians can't as the economy is fucked, but I also doubt the West would give the Russians money to fix things. Is Ukraine going to be a wasteland for decades?
I also still can't figure out what Putin's endgame is.
Natural resources.
that's what i've been thinking. even if russia manages to steamroll ukraine, what are they gonna do then? theyre going to be right next to more NATO countries who are now rearming themselves. If USSR collapsed due to the armsrace, how will modern day russia win the upcoming armsrace?
The money would have to go via the Russians (if they win), and the West has made it pretty fucking clear they refuse to give money to Russia in any form.
Ukraine economy will turn into a rocket when they are free from the Russian menace and the west starts investing into developing the gas fields.
If the russians take it, it doesn't matter because it looks just like the rest of the country
If ukraine wins it will join the EU and get plenty of cash from the west to rebuild
The whole thing is a massive blunder. They put all of their faith in the idea Ukraine would just roll over and now that they haven't Putin doesn't know what to do. He can't look weak by pulling out (and the sunk cost fallacy), but every day that goes by this gets worse for Russia.
Probably a marshal plan of sorts.
Forget about the NATO bullshit it was just a fake pretext
Not the Russians, that's for sure
>They put all of their faith in the idea Ukraine would just roll over
Where did they even get this idea? Haven't they seen the resolve of the ukranians during the euromaidan?
Only if ukraine wins, russia can't afford it
They believed their own propaganda. They genuinely thought that the Ukrainians wanted to be "liberated" and would welcome them as heroes. Keep in mind Russia invaded without a fucking casus belli. This whole thing is a mess.
What other countries? If Russia wins they're going to install a Belarus-tier dictator that the West won't recognize, won't support, and will probably sanction. Russia meanwhile won't have enough money to spend to fix all of this because they'll still be under embargo too.
China could step in but they usually expect something in return. I guess it would be kind of funny if they end up Chinese-aligned like Albania did.
Nah, even if China pumped a gorillion dollars into Ukraine the Ukrainians would still be pro-West at this point. The West has done all it can to support Ukraine since the war started, China has abstained and fucked around. Memories of war are long.
Ukraine is Russia's buffer zone against the NATO countries of Eastern Europe. If Russia has Ukraine they don't care about NATO anymore. The NATO countries that border Ukraine are relatively small and not much threat to Russia. A NATO Ukraine on the other hand is what Russia fears most because it would be too big and powerful. A NATO Ukraine would also spearhead any NATO invasion of Russia without any natural barriers to slow the invasion down. With Ukraine, Russia has natural barriers out to the Carpathian Mountains which are much more defendable.
Interesting picture. The odds are 50:50 that they blew it with a tank on it or an idiot conscript tried to cross it and got stuck.
USSR had buffer states going all the way to central europe and it still collapsed. How will this help them in any significant way?
I think the latter.
>russia tank best in world can cross any obstacle
>cyka blyat
>forget it sergei let's just run away and leave it
no one, the infrastructure in Ukraine is fucked for a very long time. On the bright side the bad infrastructure will make land unusable to the Russians and make any future invasion from Russia much harder.
IF the Ukraines win, the EU will gladly allocate billions to rebuild and the Ukraine has the people and the skills to do it. Should the Russians win the Ukraines will have to pay themselves and it will take a decade. But this is Europe. Stuff gets built.
Future generations will pay for it over decades. The ukrainians were bankrupt before this war, now they're double fucked
>My biggest question is who pays to fix all this damage. The Russians can't as the economy is fucked,
there are many rumors around on intel telegram channels
1)ukraine can join eu
2)ukraine will never join nato
3)i guess we can add certain weapons system as of now
4)ukraine accepts dnr lnr and crimea as russian
5)russia will accept to rebuilt the cities of which they destroyed
6)russia will start paying ukraine gas fees from pre 2010 prices
7)russia accepts ukraine neutrality and ascension to eu and ukraine accepts the importance...or ukraine as a strategic landmass to russia and thus they will remain neutral
you also need to understand that ukraine is basicly land locked now so in which state of country talks be finalized remains to be seen
They expected no resistance, user. I doubt they see rebuilding as anything more than a distant nightmare looming over them if things go well.
This invasion isn't about just Ukraine, it's about all the other Russian aligned states.
The Central Asian countries are seeing all the benefits of being Western or Chinese aligned
Kazakhstan is getting pissed and Russia had to send in troops, killing 200 people
en.wikipedia.org
Belarus is fucking pissed, hundreds of thousands protesting
en.wikipedia.org
Russia needs to demonstrate it will stomp on the throat of anyone who tries to leave its sphere, and it tried to do that with Ukraine but failed miserably
China will be glad to help.
Soviet Union collapsed because their economy sucked. Buffer states are to establish defensible lines, not to make the economy better or worse. Without a defensible buffer NATO could reach Moscow in just a few days because the whole area from the Ukraine border to Moscow is just a flat steppe.
The "we will fuck you up if you try to leave us" stance really isn't a great one for the future. It's now clear the West is happy to economically genocide you if you try it, so I imagine places like Georgia and Kazakhstan might be more willing to openly challenge Russia now.
In what world does NATO invade Russia?
What do they have to gain from invading that shit hole filled with rusty nukes
Bros!
What will happen with the Russian Federation? All of these little countries rely on funds from Moscow to keep them loyal. What if the funds dry up? What will keep them from going independent?
Profits from those will go straight in the pockets of oligarchs. Why do you think both countries have shit infrastructure despite massive natural resources.
For some reason Russians are absolutely convinced every westerner is slavering for their blood. It's pretty nuts.
>In what world does NATO invade Russia?
Russia considers NATO their enemy because of Serbia, Libya, etc. Many NATO or NATO aligned countries also participated in wars in the Middle East against Iraq and Syria who were friendly towards Russia. If Russia considers NATO their enemy they have to plan for the worst which would be a NATO invasion from Ukraine.
I guess they're not wrong now. The entire West is united in wanting Russians to suffer.
its the same agitprop the Soviets used for almost half a century to get the peasants to support 40% of their economy being directly tied to the military
None of those cases risked a nuclear war
An all-out invasion on a nuclear power is suicide
>hey, we're going to prevent a NATO invasion by creating a crisis that would absolutely cause NATO to invade us if they cared enough to do it
>muh defense!
I don't get it, the EU has allowed its militaries to wither and stagnate, and underfunded them massively since the collapse of the USSR. No population had any thoughts of supporting conflict in Russia anymore, the cold War was over.
The only NATO member with any serious clout was across the Atlantic ocean and they pulled a lot.of European troops out. Russia was under no threat of invasion in the next century. Yet they've chimped out for 20 years about NATO and the EU, fucked with their neighbours who then joined NATO and now even Germany is stating to take remilitarising seriously.
The whole thing is just a massive own goal.
>Ukraines will have to pay themselves and it will take a decade.
Neither Russia or Ukraine has even barely recovered since the fall of the Soviet Union, outside of major cities.
Instead they are both filled with dilapidated infrastructure and industry and commie blocks rapidly reaching the end of the point where just maintenance can keep them in order.
A decade might be a bit optimistic.
Pretty much. If Russia had played their cards right they could have been a stable liberal democracy that was friendly with the West by this point. Instead, we get this shit.
Ballistic missile defenses could soon make nuclear weapons obsolete, at least the ones delivered by ICBM. Maybe Russia saw its window of invincibility slipping away and felt it had to act now while its nuclear deterrent is still credible. Russia without effective nuclear weapons could be an invasion target based on what western countries have done in the past against countries like Iraq.
Once Russia agrees to pay reparations the West will lift most of their sanctions, don't worry.
If Russians occupy them and/or instal puppet government they are on their own
In one where ICBM are obsolete. It may not happen tomorrow. It may not happen in a hundred years. But it is dubious that the current state of affairs will last forever.
Russia put a lot of money aside over the years to pay for this. If they can end this war in time it won't hurt too much. Destruction is limited so far and it's not like Russians have high standards. They'll rebuilt everything in the cheapest shittiest way as usual
Not really. I speak to people here in the UK, and they say they don't like Putin, but feel sorry for the Russian people.
Most people seem to understand that the Russian people don't actually have much choice in this, and that 99% of Russians, like them, just want to live with dignity and make babies.
That's nuts. The West has moved completely from the model of "Invade someone and take their shit" to "Trade with someone for their shit", for the simple reason that you get richer doing it. Because when you trade someone for their shit, they've got more stuff and you can come back tomorrow and trade them again for something else.
Has the West not invaded any countries in the last 20 years?
I suppose that's a somewhat plausible long-term investment, still seems like a better idea to try and improve the internal economic situation to become more of a developmental equal, rather than planning on still being a tinpot country in 100 years
Yes, but for other reasons.
They invade them to create regimes that will trade with them (on their terms) but they don't annex lands anymore.
When Elon Musk gets Starship working it should be possible to dump thousands of ballistic missile interceptors into space on short notice. We could very well see the end of the ICBM threat in the next decade. That won't work against hypersonics and subsea autonomous nukes though which is why Russia is working on alternate delivery methods.
There will be some sort of treaty signed eventually where this will all be worked out. Probably at some neutral sit. Macron is at least on speaking terms with Putin, so probably a place like Versailles
So what you are saying is that Russia no longer has any faith in their ICBM force maintaining serviceability as a strategic threat and is fearing the West will figure it out?
Good to know.
Oh I see, the invading forces would only install a pliable government, right that's much more reassuring
The strategic buffer enhances security. Without it, the first and last option to defend Russia is nuclear. Imagine if Europe endures some major crisis one day, one that demolishes the pillars of democracy. Imagine if a new ideological crusader set himself to "liberate" or "colonize" Russia and he sees nukes as a bluff and decides to do it.
5 years before WW2, Germany was disarmed, with heavy restrictions, broken and with a residual army. In just 4 years later, that army had multiplied by 7 and was ready to take over Europe.
They could have carried on being the corrupt shithole they are and no one would care, most of Europe was happy hosting their billionaire's and buying their gas and oil. Just accept the USSR is over and you don't control half of Europe, thats all Putin had to do.
Not any countries with nuclear weapons. We're not completely retarded.
USA has. European countries hasn't invaded anyone on their own - not even France, which is saying something. That the rest of NATO shows up with a few guns when USA says pretty please or you might not get any F35s is a different story.
>But this is Europe. Stuff gets built
Cmon, scars of WW2 and gommunism are still here
Not any that are worth a shit.
>Imagine if Europe endures some major crisis one day, one that demolishes the pillars of democracy. Imagine if a new ideological crusader set himself to "liberate" or "colonize"
In that case I'm sure Russia would be happy to greet a new peer
Yeah, but even that has become discredited after the abject failures of that type of neo-colonialism in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The West has slowly, after hundreds of years, come round to the idea that Empires, crypto or otherwise, are more trouble and cost more than they're worth.
They're just sort of the local niggers, you can legit walk in there and hate crime the little cunts until they stop crying.
What is probably more interesting though is the semi-aligned central asian stans which have all their workforce off in Russia doing whatever jobs they can get paid for- not that interesting?
Well the fun fact there is some of those countries have a liquid economy of anywhere between 20-30% tied to send-back wages to families and supporting them with that employment. They will start to bleed out really quickly as a lot of the cash transfer industries between Russian banks and their local ones have effectively flicked the switch on the rouble and are no longer conducting those transactions.
As regime change is no longer an option, there are two plausible scenarios left.
1) Both parties agree on a ceasefire in which Russia eats Donbas and Crimea while Ukraine will be barred from joining NATO (unlikely)
2) Russia lays waste to eastern Ukraine, annexes Donbas and Kharkiv region, turns Ukraine practically into an agrarian state and fucks off.
A third and extremely unlikely outcome is that Ukraine can drag the conflict to a stalemate and force status quo ante. This would lead to major political crisis and very likely coup in Russia. Everybody knows that so the Russians will go all-in on the conflict and rather burn Kiev to the ground than retreating.
Even a loss accomplishes some of Putin's objectives: show everyone what happens to any country that defies him. Even if we see a 20 year insurgency that bleeds the red army dry and results in eventual withdrawal, they're going to leave nothing but rubble behind them when they leave, and nobody will be able to retaliate meaningfully against Russia's infrastructure itself. Dictators do this kind of shit even though it ultimately hurts their country more than it helps, because it isn't about helping their country, it's emotionally-driven, they do it to show everyone, their own people included, that they can do terrible things and nobody can stop them.
>Empires, crypto or otherwise, are more trouble and cost more than they're worth.
If only you knew
Ukraine apparently launched a couple of Tochka tactical ballistic missiles at Russian bases and Russia was unable to intercept because their S-400 is shit. It's easy to see a world approaching where the west can use nukes against Russia but the reverse is impossible. Imagine the fear that induces in the minds of Russian leadership being confronted with evidence of their military impotency which they suspected all along. There must be absolute panic in the Russian military and government right now.
You're ignoring one of the most significant factors with this - Russia's economy. Options 1 and 2 you list aren't really viable for Russia unless they want to be North Korea tier forever.
I can see a new Hitler arising in the coming years in Europe as half of the continent becomes increasingly arid or even sinks underwater due Climate Change while the Russian permafrost melts and become land suitable for future farmland.
The issue with this morally correct stance is that it allows bad people to stay in power. Expect a media offensive of the poor civillians being starved by the evil NATO and how it's all their fault. Sanctions should not be lifted as compassion won't work with an indoctrinated populace.
They can sustain 10-12 weeks on conflict which is enough to turn every stone in eastern Ukraine several times over. They are still shipping oil and gas to foreign partners and still get paid for it. For reasons that would be beyond the scope of this bird those shipment will not stop, because the global economy depends on those shipments. Same goes for fertilizer. They might have some nasty sanctions against them, but it is not as crippling as one might think at first glance.
They for sure can be there for a year and occupation is no option. Three months of turning Ukraines east into the dark side of the moon is well within their capabilities. And that is exactly what they are going to do. They will likely lose between 15-and 25,000 deaths and 2 or 3 times the amount of wounded, but they are already all in. The will raze half the country and the international community will watch it happen.
Putin has a tragic grenade cleaning accident when the oligarchs decide his usefulness is at an end and don't want to listen to his girlyman whiney voice anymore
They will never risk violent transition in Russia unless the alternative is the apocalypse.
Hey I was just saying how people in the UK see it. I also don't believe people are as easily indoctrinated as people here or on Any Forums like to believe.
>They genuinely thought that the Ukrainians wanted to be "liberated" and would welcome them as heroes.
I actually think this is the lesser part of it.
I think Putin believes that the West is weak, effeminate, and degenerate. I think he thought that soft Westerners would not really be able to put up a fight against the chad tradorth warriors.
You can see it in everything he does - seething hatred for LGBT and for gender equality. I think he is certainly more articulate, but underneath that I wouldn't be surprised if Putin literally has the same views as a fucking Any Forums poster - and by "the same" I don't mean "both hate gays". I mean "Western armies cannot fight because they have gays in them."
Sure, it's a normal opinion to have and I don't blame anyone for it. It means they are human.
chinese loans
Don't forget they still have Medvedev who's been chest-bumping about nuking the world back to the stone age and shit. The issue with Putin is that he's not the only one who needs to crook to reverse this shit.
Russia can pay in raw minerals like oil
Direct transfer of the resources
How much is the bridge?
How much is that in barrels of oil?
Russia hands over that many barrels
the part that everyone is ignorig: yes ukraine will be fucked for decades. even with support it takes time to repair, and even when repaired labor force is a major aspect of economy and that is going to take time to regrow.
Same with Russia though. War is expensive.
Lol
Yeah, but you said the West was united in wanting Russians to suffer. Which wasn't the case.
People just don't want Putin to be able to use their money to buy weapons to point at their heads.
That's very different to wanting Russian people to suffer.
Oil alone will not feed starving families.
This will: twitter.com
I said no such thing though. That original poster is not me.
But that's a crazy position for a KGB apparatchik to take. The KGB literally targeted gays for recruitment in espionage because they could promise the gays something they couldn't get in the West at the time, freedom to live as they wanted. The KGB realised that if you suppress someone like that, they'll do anything to be free even betray their countries.
The most successful, ahem, "penetrations" or British intelligence were all done by gays. A gay person or a cuck or any sexually off center person is going to fight twice as hard for their liberal democracy as a normal person, because they have more to lose.
Then you should have indicated that when you came into the discussion. It's a reasonable thing for me to assume.
china will edge thier way into them, to put thier rail through, especially as Russia can't be trusted to not be full retard
>My biggest question is who pays to fix all this damage.
If Ukraine continues to exist as an entity after this war and somehow beats back Russia either by willpower or outlasting them? Europe and America. If Ukraine falls into Russian hands and becomes a puppet state? Nobody because Russia will become North Korea 2: Slavic Boogaloo if they keep on this path.
The only option is a complete shake up of the russian political system. All the oligarchs went through the 90s, they do not want that again or even worse. As long as the current leadership is not about to start global nuclear holocaust, they will not risk violent transition.
>Russia put a lot of money aside over the years to pay for this.
Money that they can't access now
Yeah but China doesn't need to be on good terms with the country as a whole for them to become 'China aligned', just with the kike bankers and pols taking out Chinese debt.
But of course that assumes Ukraine retains some amount of autonomy, if Russia achieves total victory then yeah Ukraine will be a bombed out hellhole for decades
Through history I can't think that Russia has EVER had a "just" leader, who didnt steal/gulag/famine the russian people. Perhaps Russians mentally dont even have the concept in thier minds of a government that could be in anyway benevolent or posistive for them?
Can you translate?
Not directly but it says that defecting russian soldiers will receive 5 million rubles (apparently in crypto, stated somewhere else) and full amnesty.
This reminds me of when my sister said she saved up money to move into an apartment. Its dumb. You need it to be within your cash flow to do something like this successfully, not saving.
once it's back in Russian hands the Russian will fix it.
Lmao the us paid to rebuild Western Europe and Japan after the war
USSR paid to rebuild Eastern Europe
China rebuilt by itself
Why is every flag here a mystery nigga?