RedDave2 wrote:

Apparently Ukraine is quite vast and hard to navigate so even without western backing it wouldn't be as straight forward as some think.

It's less than 100km from the Belarusian border to the centre of Kiev though, so not too difficult to get troops in quickly.

Putin has been building up military forces at the border, though. Not sure that western nations can be blamed for expecting a fight when he’s doing that.

A better playground analogy would be

There are two gangs in the playground, one which is certainly not doing as well as it was
Putin, the leader of the gang which had declined so much, knows he needs to be a sneaky shit to get his way
So he's been bullying in a less ostentatious way: shit has happened, everyone knows it was him, but he somehow stays out of trouble and continues to destabilise the rival gang
Now he's got braver, no consequences for previous shenanigans, so he starts more overtly picking on smaller, more neutral targets as a proxy war
The somewhat dim but powerful larger gang have responded with more force than Putin expected
but back down now and he looks weak to his gang, he's over played his hand
If the larger gang were good at this strategy shit rather than dumb brute force there'd be a way to let Putin slink back without losing too much face
But they sense weakness and have called bluffs and here we are

I'd be curious to know how the Russian media are covering this

equinox_code wrote:

I'd be curious to know how the Russian media are covering this

No need to wonder.

https://www.rt.com/russia/547425-us-soldiers-ukraine-front/

dynamiteReady wrote:

Also turns out that the dude Belarus lifted off that RyanAir flight, was actually well connected to Ukraine's best organized defence force. Nazi's apparently, but supposed well supplied. I would only guess at who was supplying this facist army, intent on defending Ukraine from another Russian invasion...

hot sauce please

dynamiteReady wrote:

equinox_code wrote:

I'd be curious to know how the Russian media are covering this

Probably as the big brother supporting a beleaguered ally.

Russia consider Ukraine to be part of Russia. They don't think of Ukraine as an ally, they think of it as lost territory.

dynamiteReady wrote:

Funkstain wrote:

Also turns out that the dude Belarus lifted off that RyanAir flight, was actually well connected to Ukraine's best organized defence force. Nazi's apparently, but supposed well supplied. I would only guess at who was supplying this facist army, intent on defending Ukraine from another Russian invasion...

hot sauce please

While the exact nature of his involvement with Azov is difficult to know, Belarusian state media have seized upon it in an attempt to portray Mr Protasevich as an extremist.

From - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-57229635

But if you follow the keywords around, there's a lot of murky water around his role and access.

Like I'd mentioned earlier, things took a crazy turn after he was arrested illegally in Belarus. Sanctions against Belarus for this, in hindsight, looks like the came with a huge risk. That leads me to think he was more important than the Western media suggests.

At any rate, Azoz, until now at least, was the seen as key deterrent to a full invasion before.
But I'm only drawing this from recent interest. There's going to be much more history out there on Azoz, and what they did in the first war.

You seem to be reading a lot into this. One guy isn't critical to national defence.

Any info he had is well out of date now. I'm not sure I understand what critical role he would have played, or how his information he may have had may be pivotal?

I'm just guessing* how Putin might spin the action for his people. 
They would probably need to tell the Belarussian on the street the same thing.

And think about how the war in Iraq was sold to us... 
It's almost customary for politicians to spin an offensive move, as a defensive one.

Despite Putin's carefully cultivated image, he'll still understand the value of describing things in these terms.
In fact, even the Beeb tend to summarise his actions as a consequence of a fear of NATO.

Diplomatically speaking, Putin has never said "gimme Ukraine", the message tends to be "We agreed these countries won't join the EU, or NATO. We're worried about the consequences of their association with these organisations on our border control and defence policies."

That's not to say he doesn't want to invade. I'm sure he'd love to do it at as small a price possible (a puppet government like Belarus, probably). But the question was what he's telling his own mans.

* Dammit. I was speculating... Fuck.

Aye, Putin’s stance has always been that NATO are the expantionist/invading force.

https://mobile.twitter.com/GirkinGirkin/status/1486740087538917379

S-500 (or maybe s-400) anti aircraft missile systems being moved to the border. This weapon system is one of (but not the) the reasons the US isn't getting involved militarily. They make it almost impossible for the US to get air superiority, which they've had in every conflict since Vietnam iirc.

Yep, fucking massive. They might actually be S-300s, so not as much of a threat to US F-35s, but still a risk to anything older.

Ah fair enough I misunderstood your point then. Sorry for aggressive response.

Putin continually calling Western govs out for utter hypocrisy is always fun.

The question is, can she get an all-expenses holiday and spa day out of it? I bet she can.