Russia's Invasion of Ukraine (Official Thread)
- Thread starter newarkhiphop
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wait so this is why Orban is on Putin’s dikk. Putin gassed this dude into believing that Hungary is an ancient super-state that carries precedence over others 
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To the extent that people would be surprised, it shows just how clueless we in the US can be about what truly motivates people who weren't born here.
The invasion just solidified why I can’t be as far left or anti-American as a lot of these tankies out here who just see the CIA under every bed.
Putin literally confirmed everything people said about him was true and that this is just some vile imperialist bullshyt that has to be checked before it continues.
Russia could attack a Nato country within 3 to 5 years, Denmark warns
Danish defence minister is latest western official to sound the alarm about Moscow’s continued appetite for war
www.ft.com
Russia could attack a Nato country within 3 to 5 years, Denmark warns
Danish defence minister is latest western official to sound the alarm about Moscow’s continued appetite for war
Russia could attack a Nato country in as little as three years, according to Denmark’s defence minister, in the latest and starkest warning from a western official about Moscow’s appetite for confrontation beyond its war in Ukraine.
Troels Lund Poulsen joined colleagues from Sweden, the UK, Romania, Germany and others in sounding the alarm about Russia’s increased defence spending potential leading to direct confrontation with Nato, which would test the alliance’s collective defence pledge known as Article 5.
“It cannot be ruled out that within a three- to five-year period, Russia will test Article 5 and Nato’s solidarity. That was not Nato’s assessment in 2023. This is new information that is coming to the fore now,” Poulsen told Jyllands-Posten, a Danish newspaper.
European countries have increasingly warned in recent weeks that they believe Russia could try to undermine Nato in the coming decade. In private, many worry that an election victory for Donald Trump in November’s US presidential elections could embolden Russia further.
Sweden’s military chief and prime minister have both this year warned its citizens to prepare mentally for war, while German and Estonian ministers have said that Russia could be able to attack Nato within five to eight years.
While Kyiv’s western allies have struggled to agree further funding and to ramp up arms production for Ukraine, Russia has rebooted its military-industrial complex and secured weapons from countries such as Iran and North Korea.
“There is reason to be genuinely concerned,” said Poulsen. “Russia’s capacity to produce military equipment has increased tremendously . . . Russia potentially has the will to [launch attacks]. Now they can also have the ability in terms of military capability earlier than we expected.”
Micael Johansson, chief executive of Saab, the Swedish company that is one of Europe’s leading defence groups, told the Financial Times that he was worried about Russia producing more than 10 times more artillery rounds — about 4mn to 5mn a year — than Europe was able to. He said that western governments needed to give more long-term commitments to defence companies.
“We are investing heavily. Is that enough? It is not so easy to understand how far we have to go to have deterrence and resilience versus the threat from the east,” Johansson said. He added that there was a significant need for “more sites, more capacity” to manufacture weapons in Europe.
Vlad Gheorghiță, the newly appointed head of the Romanian armed forces, said Russia would target Moldova and the western Balkans if it succeeded in Ukraine, adding that Romanians needed to prepare and the army should be beefed up in response.
“The Russian Federation will not stop here. If [Putin] wins in Ukraine, the main target will be the Republic of Moldova. We will witness tensions in the western Balkans. I am more than convinced that President [Vladimir] Putin’s policy will escalate in the immediate future,” Gheorghiță told Radio Free Europe last week.
Russian drone attacks in the Danube delta, where Ukraine borders Romania — a Nato country — have rattled Bucharest, exposing how ill-prepared it is against unmanned aircraft hitting its territory.
“The people of Romania, as all of Europe, must be concerned and we must prepare accordingly,” Gheorghiță said, adding that Romania had a chronic shortage of personnel and lack of ammunition and equipment.
Nato did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Jens Stoltenberg, Nato’s secretary-general, said earlier this week that the alliance did not see any imminent threat against a member country.
A few thoughts on the Tucker-Putin interview:
Having watched the interview last night, I've been very interested in seeing the reaction here on this site. A lot of people have focused on 'Putin as an autistic history nerd' (good memes here), while others have stuck to variations on 'look how his history is a lie and bizarre and strange' or 'he whiffed the PR opportunity and didn't give MAGA anything.'
Ok. The former is funny, the middle is standard signaling and positioning, and the latter is US politics brain. Fine! But there's really tremendous data in here if we want to look seriously. Some points below.
First, the most important thing is indeed the half-hour history lesson. Not only did Putin start with this, and refuse to be interrupted, he even made a big show of gifting documents supporting his arguments to Tucker. What this tells us is that the history component to the Russo-Ukrainian War is not just a point of legitimation or a general casus belli, but the motivating factor for VVP personally. That's really big!
I've argued for a year now that we should understand the proximate cause of the war to be Vladimir Putin's deepening historical obsessions, his sense of personal grievance, and the unique isolation that allowed this to fester in the runup to 2022. You can find an article making that case here: Putin’s Agency and the Decision for War – Riddle Russia. If you've taken my undergraduate course on Russian Politics, it's there as well. This interview is strong supporting data for that framing. Note how often Putin dismisses NATO expansion as the reason for action, as well as how much he does not care about Ukrainian democracy qua democracy. He doesn't even think it is a democracy (note the coup discussions).
Rather, he's clearly motivated - then and now - by historical concerns most of all. And this is important, which some observers may not quite get. He was not always like this! That is, the long rants about history that justify political action have become more and more common in the last ten years, and especially the last four or five. Which fits a model of growing obsession - which, incidentally, also aligns well with Putin's post-2012 sense that only he can stably rule Russia, and that he wants to bequeath a legacy. Tucker wasn't able to get an answer to the core question - why 2022 and not earlier - but this is good material for a obsession interpretation.
Second, another element that came out strongly was Putin's sense of personal insult and snubbing. He is butthurt by his world leader colleagues. We have dozens of minutes of him talking about the Bushes, about documents signed by the French and Germans, about negotiations generally - all of which end with Russia not getting what was promised or it expected. That could be read simply as justification for Russia's actions (i.e., the hypocrisy of the West) but what is mostly communicated, verbally and through body language, is that Putin himself feels slighted, and that he does not understand why others do not see the world, and the consequences of events, as clearly as he does. This is also quite interesting.
There is very little reason to believe this interview is anything less than the sincere views of Putin himself, as a smarter-than-average Russian boomer who is trying to explain why he's right, why he's been aggrieved, and why the other sides are just so stupid and shortsighted. He's booming really hard, it's very evident. He's not sharing everything, but he's telling you that he's not sharing everything with a knowing, paternalistic smile while he says it. And he really wants to get it through your thick skull what actually matters. Rurik, Yaroslav the Wise, 1654, Bohdan Khmelnitsky, the Soviet Union and the border changes, leaders just not being reasonable, etc etc.
Third, I don't think we can understand this interview as some sort of functionalist strategic communication exercise at all. VVP clearly did not care to talk about US political issues, he did not "throw red meat to MAGA" or whatever, he did not rise to the bait several times to get on a cleaner messaging narrative that would sell with an international audience of illiberal or West-skeptical types. At all! It was the above, which means this interview was about what Vladimir Putin himself thought rather than what he thought would sell best. That's incredibly unusual for an interview like this.
We didn't get anything about cancel culture, or gender ideology, or Biden being senile, or the US being this evil tentacled hegemon that threatens global peace. He was actually incredibly circumspect on that sort of thing. Much more so than in other venues in the recent past. This was Putin as pedagogue-in-chief, trying to educate Tucker not only about history, but also about how the world actually works. Look to the wandering discussion on the Orange Revolution, Yanukovych, the various negotiations, for that. The personal resentment comes out here in a distinct way, as disappointment and confusion as to why other international partners just don't get it the way VVP does.
Truly, the most framed or set-up part of this interview was the point about the spring 2022 negotiations (note his arg that instead of the Battle of Kyiv being lost, it was a part of a negotiation that got cut short by Johnson's intervention - an interesting assertion). And Tucker got him to talk about future potential negotiations as well. That was also enlightening, as it reiterated Putin's world-weary points that the other side doesn't get it and is stubborn, and that there is a 'reasonable' way out if only leaders would be clear-eyed.
This is important to keep in mind, especially as Putin seems quite confident the war is going well enough that he can just wait for negotiations to inevitably appear. Also note his regular recourse to proceduralism - negotiations are detailed, complicated, have many moving parts. The bureaucratic KGB and legal background always shines through with Putin at the end of the day.
Finally, as I've noted, this interview was pretty strange. Tucker tried to move things in a way that fit his own views (NATO expansion, the 'who runs the US' question, demonic forces on earth (?)), which was pretty cringe. But he actually did a decent job overall (sorry!). He asked about Gershkovich and pushed fairly hard all things considered, he got steamrolled by VVP but managed to barely hold on given the very meandering discussion (Putin's framing of 2004 and 2013-14 is genuinely difficult to understand if you don't already know the events quite well), he didn't crash the interview so bad that it ended early, he figured out he had a unique opportunity to let Putin talk, and in doing so he provided us a unique window into VVP.
It turns out that Putin says the same thing to Tucker as he does to Ru journos, with even more Putinsplaining. Which is illuminating! The history thing is the real deal, as is his belief that negotiations (in Russia's favor and in accordance with Putin's own sense of what is reasonable) are possible. Both of these things are really important for us to get at analytically.
I'm still thinking about this, but those are some topline takeaways as I process it this morning.