Russia has lost half a dozen ships to a nation with no navy. And they want to throw down with one as experienced as the UK? "Attacking the home of Storm Shadow missiles is a good thing" is the thought of an idiot.
They’re still following their WWII and czarist military doctrine of “we have more people and resources than you”. It’s a shame that Russian military leadership will forever be associated with this instead of having a second chance to demonstrate the actual might and strategy of Trotsky’s red army.
It sometimes seems like being in power in Russia destroys your ability to have sensible military strategy
They could deploy their only aircraft carrier, that’ll show ‘em.
Oh, wait, never mind.
“The ship has been out of service and in repairs since 2018. The repair process has been hampered by accidents, embezzlement of funds, and other setbacks. After the floating drydock PD-50 sank in Kola Bay (Murmansk) in an accident that killed one worker in October 2018, the ship was towed to Sevmorput Yard No 35. In another mishap in December 2019, a major fire killed at least one worker and injured ten others. In June 2022, the ship was transferred to a drydock at the 35th Ship Repair Plant in Murmansk, where it remained until February 2023. The current projection is that repairs will be completed and the ship will be transferred back to the Russian Navy sometime in 2024, however this may be pushed back to 2025 if issues arise during overhaul and testing”
Russia on Monday threatened to strike British military facilities
This is equivalent to USA threatening to strike North Korean, Iranian or Chinese facilities (all of whom have been arming Russia). No such threats have been made.
Every time Russia says "there will be consequences" they're just throwing threats around like a dog barking from the other side of a fence
All their cards are on the table. The only things they could pull off are drafting more people or going nuclear
They're now scrambling to find soldiers from other nations because announcing another draft would obviously shake Putin's control over Russia
I just wish Europe would stop playing this war like a political game. SEIZE RUSSIAN MONEY! What are you afraid of? Ruining relations with Russia? Fuck off! Ukraine won't have people to fight forever
So true. By this point, Russia is already using everything it can, short of an actual, hot war with the west. And their military is stretched to the limit already without that.
I think this sabre rattling is still useful to them as a one-two-tactic:
Public threat from Russia, mentioning but not directly threatening nukes (the "push" side)
Russia-aligned media in the west publish articles saying "Putin's threat should be taken seriously," Russia-aligned western politicians smearing their opponents as "irresponsible war mongers", followed by pushing for existing sanctions to be lifted, etc. (the "pull" side via stooges/crooked politicians)
This is exactly what they should do. But they won't, because most of it is held in the City of London's offshore boltholes. Seizing anything from them would scare the shit out of every big-time capitalist and corrupt politician on the planet. Would be good for us though.
Yeah if we’d done this in Vietnam it wouldn’t be great because Ho Chi Minh was the elected leader of Vietnam, but the Vietnam war wouldn’t’ve been the absolute shit show it was. Frankly most of our wars should’ve been this
Times are tough for Russia. Putin has put a lot of his resources into cheaper alternatives like threats and cyber warfare. He is hoping, and aiding with psyops, his ally stooges, the House Putin faction and Donald Von Shitzinpantz to steal the presidency soon.
They did that because they needed a reason for their forces to be near the border (Of course it wouldn't fool a concussed chipmunk, but that's not relevant). This is why historically Russian military exercises often get up NATO's nose, because Russia does this a lot, it claims " training exercises" as an excuse for its forces to be in NATO waters.
But simulating a nuclear strike doesn't require forces to be in NATO territory or anywhere near the UK.
It's not the exercises itself that's the problem, it's the fact that Russia often uses them as justification for moving forces around.
If Russia simulates a nuclear strike against London for example, how will anyone in London even notice. They're just going to say they did it. It won't actually involve doing anything.
He's talking about tactical nukes though, not strategic ones. The exercises he's talking about would be to practice using small scale nukes to secure battlefield "victories" (batshit insanity).
It seems the Brits are doing something right, keep it going. Would love to see our chancellor doing the same instead of repeating the russian propaganda...
It genuinely baffles me how the conservative parties of more than a few western countries went from the hawkish party during the Cold War to Russian apologists today. The mental gymnastics are truly astounding.
Well, the base is definitely suffering from a tragic lack of gravitas. It helps to be aware that you desire to mistake not your own worldview, for a universal one. "Common sense" is never truly common, but derived from the knowledge and beliefs of the individual.
I’m not though. If you’d have taken a poll of Republicans at literally any point before Trump launched his campaign, asking whether Russia was an ally or adversary, it would have yielded strong consensus on the latter.
So I think it's less relevant to consider Russia qua Russia here, and think of it more as a negative applause light that has had its valence flipped through the exercise of the massive media machine that the right has built to prevent another Nixon from ever having to resign in disgrace again.
To add some icing, the phrase was originally Russian and was a household joke in Russia for decades. Russians (and Vlad Puta) know very well how unserious and comical numerous "final warnings" are.
I'd take it more seriously if the West actually became involved, but regardless of Frenchmen "shooting their mouth off" nobody's sending troops to fight a nuclear power.
Maybe double check to see if they actually still are one. All these decades of sabre rattling and corruption in the defense industry, wouldn't it just take the cake if hardly any of their nuclear capabilities still worked?
A 99% failure rate would still leave them capable of MAD. That they don't have that capability is a dangerous pipe dream, which I see nowhere except Lemmy and Reddit comment sections.
I would say no-one is sending troops yet. I really dislike any country ruling it out entirely, better to just say nothing. If the conditions change, we (NATO/Europe) will need to act. Otherwise, our leaders may well be judged by the same yardstick as the leaders keen to appease a certain country in the late 30s.
I would tend to agree. But I think we definitely need to define a line in the sand now, not declare there is no line. Which seems to me to be what such statements say about us.
My point is, someone has to say where the line is (or indeed was). I don't think any western government wants to be on record saying where it is (or should have been). Some are saying there isn't a line regardless of what happens, and that's the problem I'm talking about. It's worse than not defining the line.
Allow me to rephrase: We're not going to involve our troops first. NATO territory is a total red line that would lead to direct conflict, and there's been specific, limited consequences set for their use of various non-conventional weapons. All conventional weapons are now being given to Ukraine, to match the ones Russia is bringing to bear.
Because of that, I don't worry too much about appeasement of Russia specifically at this point. I do worry about appeasement policies in general, though. Specifically towards various factions within the West.
If that's an argument against what I just said, it doesn't really apply here. There's a consequence for every Russian action (now, anyway) that exceeds any benefit it could get them.
A few years ago, taking salami slices is exactly what they were doing, but they got greedy and now the West is somewhat awake.
I was wondering if that would get brought up. It's sure ballsy on the UK's part. The deniability is the thing that makes it different, though. Russia doesn't have to respond to a few spies the same way as they would to an open confrontation. The reports also suggest it's very small numbers of people.
Ukraine is faring fat better than one would have expected, but they're not getting their asses kicked. The tide of the battle seems to be shifting in Russia's favor due to Ukraine being depleted of troops.
Russia on Monday threatened to strike British military facilities
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that if the Kremlin isn't happy with the current state of the war with Ukraine, that probably wouldn't produce a situation more to their liking.
I have complained to the chancellor about that and will continue to do so. But they do provide Taurus to allies who in turn send their stock of older but similarly capable systems to Ukraine such as storm shadow.
Still, it's silly and our weapons are only for defense against Russia anyway. We will only need Taurus ourselves if Ukraine loses. Might as well put them to use.
This is a good development, especially considering how direct a role the UK played in the region (and thus, the laying of the foundations of the conflict that’s been going on since then) in the decades leading up to the establishment of Israel as a country.
Hah, if this happened nowadays you'd have to sign up for a $1000/month subscription for 100 words a month on a 5-year contract, pay a $35/word overage fee, and if you didn't use all 100 words in a particular month, you could pay $5/word to roll over up to 10 of them to the next month. And if you try to cancel your subscription after those 5 years, they put you on hold for 3 hours and then accidentally hang up on you.
pbs.org
Newest