What is Putin up to?

Military News and current conflicts. Middle East, Syria, Ukraine, etc.
paul.mercer
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What is Putin up to?

Post by paul.mercer »

Gentlemen,
With Russia building up a huge force on the borders of Ukraine and issuing a ban on non commercial ships entering the Black Sea are we likely to see a full scale invasion of Ukraine? It is interesting to note the President Biden appears to have ordered the withdrawal of his two ships from the area, which may well be seen by some as 'backing down' with the resulting 'loss of face', perhaps it was a wise decision in order to avoid a confrontation that the two ships could not win, although I doubt if Trump would have done it!
Also, if Ukraine falls to Russia I would thing that some of the other smaller countries in that area must be getting a bit worried even though they are in the EU and NATO. Frankly, after the incompetence shown by Brussels in trying to get 27 countries to agree over the Covid vaccine I could not see them even trying to organize any serious form of defense if Putin decided to go for more neighbouring countries, which leaves basically the US and perhaps France and the UK, although I'm not sure if the UK would want to get involved now it's out of the EU - even then, would the US want to get involved with yet another European war?
Your comments gentlemen.
Steve Crandell
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Re: \what is Putin up to?

Post by Steve Crandell »

This is very complex. I don't want to participate because these modern day topics are emotional for a lot of people and particularly for a large extreme right wing faction in the USA. There is the potential for a lot of acrimony.
paul.mercer
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Re: \what is Putin up to?

Post by paul.mercer »

Hi Steve,
I do understand your point of view and am sorry that you feel unable to participate.
However, this is a live situation which has the possibility of turning into something more serious, I have no doubt that some may have rather far fetched ideas on how to deal with Russia but that could easily lead to all out conflict which no-one in their right mind could possibly countenance. However, I do feel that Putin is 'flexing his muscles' in order to see how far he can go before he provokes a reaction from the West and sooner or later the rest of the western world will have to stand up to him - in what form remains to be seen.
mstary1
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Re: \what is Putin up to?

Post by mstary1 »

I am seeing many people on social media and the like stating that the Ukraine is not our problem, the same with Taiwan.

Funny, but I am reminded of similar attitudes back in the 30's with Czechoslovakia is not our problem along with China.
Putin would have made a fine 30's dictator and Biden is the modern 'Peace in our time' type of guy as he waives a letter to the crowds.
paul.mercer
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Re: \what is Putin up to?

Post by paul.mercer »

Gentlemen,
Now we Know!
But will he stop at Ukraine as to go any further into NATO territory could be WW3?
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wadinga
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Re: \what is Putin up to?

Post by wadinga »

Hello Paul and mstary1,

The World's hope is that Russians, from the ordinary people whose sons are dying whilst attacking close relations, to the rich oligarchs whose wealth is being eroded, will realise Putin has finally gone mad and depose him. The Russian army needs its own Operation Valkyrie!

We should have persuaded the international community to apply maximum sanctions after the Salisbury nerve agent attack, long before it got to this "hot war" in Europe. That might have got the Russian Peoples' attention in time to head this off.

God Help Us All

wadinga
"There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today!"
cobralion
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Re: \what is Putin up to?

Post by cobralion »

The current situation is very tricky, first let's go to the current battle state of Ukraine.
Russian attacks were progressing on eastern and southern fronts, but they faced strong Ukraine resistance, and seemed like they failed to take Kharkiv and Kherson.

The first wave of airborne Russians troops failed to take control of airports near Kiev, and was heavily damaged to withdraw, however, Russian troops from Belarus and eastern Russia territories had approached to nearby areas of Kiev, I personally think this will be the most essential battle of this war.

There are rumors that there is still a Russian backup troop of 200,000 to 300,000 still hasn't enter the war, many people I known suggest that this troop was constituted of enlisted teenagers, but I hold opposite opinion since there are lots of news that Russian soldiers who surrendered to Ukraine were young and in a state of low morale, they were told to participate in "exercises".

So I personally think Putin overestimated EU and Biden's responses (Biden showed his appeasing attitude and Germany took a long time to decide on sanctions) and underestimated Ukraine's fighting abilities, courage and morale. He let experienced Russian soldiers to be backups in case of tenser conflict with other countries and let inexperienced enlisted soldiers to attack Ukraine. This resulted in less pressure for Ukraine's resistance and a higher morale for Ukrainians fighting on.
cobralion
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Re: \what is Putin up to?

Post by cobralion »

I want to put some wordy personal comments about Biden administration's strategical decisions here:

Talking about Biden's strategical decisions, I still remember a funny meme that showed USA sanctioned Russia and still let money flow to communist China, and communist China let money flow to Russia.

In order to describe some points of communist China and USA relation, we need to look to history.

The first cooperation between American generals and Chinese communists was in WWII, when American generals facing on commanding conflicts with officers of Republic of China for fighting imperial Japaneses, they decided to look for potential cooperation with communists who were against RoC government. During that period of time, leader of Chinese communists, Zedong Mao even announced that "Chinese communists wouldn't study Russian revolution but they would establish a government like USA", they even held local elections and invited Americans to see. (However, after Americans left, Chinese communists immediately revoked elected officers' qualifications and according to Soviet officer's diary, gave information to imperial Japanese.)

The second help to Chinese communist from US officers was the armistice in Manchuria after WWII, during the beginning stage of Chinese civil war, nationalist armies were forced not to pursue communist armies after the battle of Siping, allowing Soviets to give equipment, especially artillery, to communist. Soviets also let parts of elite imperial Japanese prisoners to train communist for using airplanes and armored vehicles. Meanwhile Harry S Truman held sanctions to nationalists especially for ammunition, which in many means decided the outcome of Chinese civil war.

The largest cooperation between communist China and USA was aimed against USSR, who said "using nuclear bombs against mainland Chinese communists" was a feasible option. After the fall of USSR, the spread of fundamentalistic Lenin-Stalinism halted and the second generation of Chinese communist leader, Xiaoping Deng decided to do some capitalism for citizens but hold monopolies and dictatorship for government (and governmental companies). This established the current political and economic system of mainland communist China.

Xiaoping Deng due to many reasons, appointed technocrats Zeming Jiang and Jintao Hu to be his successors, but he partially agreed on many communists' idea of letting "Red generations", their descendants to involve in controlling political system. Actually, Jinping Xi was a "Red generation" since his father, Zhongxun Xi was a member of early communists.

Zhongxun Xi was a communist who expressed different political attitude comparing to Xiaoping Deng, he not only wanted economic pro-capitalism reforms but also wanted a political democratic reform, something communists used as a propaganda during the civil war. He and Xiaoping Deng were both enemies of Zedong Mao during "Cultural Revolution". Their descendants were expelled to farms as a political punishment including Jinping Xi. Many people thought Jinping Xi would organize pro-democratic reforms after he took power since Jintao Hu easily gave highest commander of military to him. However, the past proved this was nothing but imaginary based on Jinping Xi's rewriting constitution to allow him for infinite terms of being the chairman of the country.

People began to search his past and found out not only he didn't inherit his father's ideas, he was even a fundamentalistic Lenin-Stalin-Maoist. He was betrayed by his mother, Qi Xin, after running back to home from farm during cultural revolution, by Qi Xin reported his escape to communist. He developped pro-Maoist opinions due to that era's propaganda and decided to become the "second Mao" even his master degree was fake and his true academic degree in communist identification system was primary school (He hasn't complete his middle school before been expelled to farms, that's the reason why many Chineses wrote stories like "Jinping Xi asked his college professor why '1/3 + 1/5 doesn't equal to 2/8'?")

Jinping Xi's early education decided that he would be willing to challenge USA and other democratic countries by any measures including but not limited to:
Uniting with Russians who due to many reasons killed largest number of Chinese and took largest amount of territory as foreigners.
Sending aids to internal pro-communists who hold negative values to principles of democratic government (like "Free-speech is aged").
Giving helps to any enemy of democratic government even they are terrorists, like Taliban.

Let's be honest, what Biden and other US establishments (no matter officers or businessmen) knew and familiar were technocrats like Jiang and Hu, who were willing to have certain common interests with US in financial and other areas, like at least willing to announce political support to US for fighting terrorists at governmental level. But Jinping Xi, the extreme pro-Maoist "Red generation" wouldn't agree on this, he even politically supported Taliban no matter for finance, weapons and propaganda. He disagrees with many "gaming rules between Chinese communists and US establishment", and is willing to destroy them. That's the silly part of Biden and US pro-communist establishments, if they showed their toughness, they may, or have greater chance to keep dominating mainland Chinese sweatshop, if they want to have appeasements, they will be taken advantages once and once until some parts of the system collapse.

Go back to Russian related topics, Jinping Xi allowed Russians to sell their wheat which were tested positive of lead pollution to communists controlled mainland Chineses. At least till 2022/2/26, we still haven't seen a truly comprehensive sanctions from Biden administration or EU.
cobralion
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Re: \what is Putin up to?

Post by cobralion »

Emergent news update, Russian troops started attacking Mariupol, if they succeed for taking the city, they may be able to cut the back routes of Ukraine armies in Donbass.

Pray for Ukraine fighters.
paul.mercer
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Re: \what is Putin up to?

Post by paul.mercer »

Gentlemen,
Many thanks for your replies.
It seems that with Putin's announcement that he was putting his nuclear forces 'on alert' that things may get a lot more serious world wide, as I would imagine that as soon as that announcement was made the US, UK and France would take similar action. While watching Putin making his announcement it was interesting to see that a couple of his Generals sitting behind him had looks of genuine concern on their faces, maybe they will stop him going too far?
Byron Angel
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Re: \what is Putin up to?

Post by Byron Angel »

FWIW, Paul -
I very much doubt that all of us put together do not know 5pct of what is REALLY going on around the world right now. It is impossible to distinguish the truth from all the lies. I recommend that everyone just take a moment to say a small prayer to the deity of their choice to deliver us from this craziness.

Byron
paul.mercer
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Re: \what is Putin up to?

Post by paul.mercer »

Hi Byron,
Nice to hear from you again.
Your are of course absolutely correct in that we do not really know what the score is. it would seem that Russian forces are poised for an all out assault on Kiev, I just hope that all the arms and ammunition the West is pouring in to Ukraine doesn't fall into Russian hands like all the military hardware in Afghanistan. Despite the pleas from Ukraine I'm glad the West has not declared a 'no fly zone' over the country as an 'accidental' air exchange would almost certainly happen sooner or later. The whole scenario reminds me of a book called 'Red Storm Rising' by Tom Clancy which was basically WW3 without nukes.
Lets keep our fingers crossed that it does not happen.
Byron Angel
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Re: \what is Putin up to?

Post by Byron Angel »

Hi Paul,
Call me crazy if you like, but I have a feeling that what is really going on in Ukraine bears little or no resemblance to what is being "officially" reported. I hold the major media in complete contempt and trust absolutely NOTHING being reported by them, including the video - up is down, black is white, front is back, Joseph Goebbels has returned.

Strictly my opinion, of course. YMMV.

Byron
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RF
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Re: \what is Putin up to?

Post by RF »

There is I think a very strict ''mono-narrative'' going on with this war in the western news media and we should also be aware of the role of the European Union in all of this.

For a broader view of things I think it is worth tuning in to the GB News channel in Britain, journalists such as Dan Wootton, Mark Dolan and Colin Brazier don't stick to the narrow narrative of the mainstream media and at least allow some semblance of free speech.

The real tragedy I believe is that the Russians thought going into Ukraine would have been like going into Czechoslovakia in 1968, no substantive armed resistance, but the ''Prague spring'' has gone a lot further in Ukraine and created a very dangerous situation.

What amazes me is the lack of criticism of President Biden. To me he personifies the meaning of the word ''imbecile'' and if Trump was still in office behaving in such an incapacitated manner the Democrats would have him impeached on the grounds of being unable to function in the duties of office. My guess is they don't want the Vice President to succeed him.
''Give me a Ping and one Ping only'' - Sean Connery.
Byron Angel
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Re: \what is Putin up to?

Post by Byron Angel »

Look at the “bright side”, RF. While all eyes are on Ukraine, Covid has suddenly gone from global existential health crisis to a benign annoyance that now justifies abandonment of all the apocalyptic lockdowns, vaccine mandates, vaccine passport requirements, and threatened forced confinement in quarantine camps.

Not to mention that, IIUC, official UK data has now reported that vaccinated individuals presently account for 9 of 10 UK Covid cases. If accurate, how curious ..........

One is honestly forced to wonder exactly what is going on.

B
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