Huge pro-EU rally grips Ukraine

[Oberon]

More Bastion-P mobile defence systems deployed to Crimea, two Buyan-M corvettes at Sevastopol, Russia deployed troops to the Ukraine border on the 7th and the Ukrainian forces on the Crimean border went to high alert today.
With the US pretty paralysed by elections and the EU not sure what's going on after Brexit, now is an opportune moment for Russia to finish the job.

[Rockstar]

all the more power to'em

[Jimbuna]

Aye, it certainly looks like matters are about to kick off again

[Oberon]

An overview of the military build-up around Ukraine:

http://www.understandingwar.org/site...al_Version.pdf


The Beeb also has an article here, which has a bit of an ominous line in it:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-37062036

Moscow also announced exercises in Crimea next week to simulate an attack by weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

They know something we don't?


Also, an interactive map of the area, there's also seperate maps for Syria, which look interesting:

http://liveuamap.com/

[Jimbuna]

One possibility could be that the present sanctions are starting to hurt Russia and Putin may use the threat of an invasion to get a level of easing from said sanctions.

He could also of course be about to say to the West, "Bring it on, I doubt you'll intervene militarily anyway".

[Rockstar]

I think its been said since Russia's GDP is slightly below that of Italy and its conventional forces cannot really initiate and sustain a war with NATO without losing. The only other alternative is leave Ukraine to Russia, which is fine by me, or suffer ALL OUT NUCLEAR WARFARE that could turn us all into MUSLIM ZOMBIES.

Seriously though if conventional warfare with NATO is an impossibilty what is the alternative?

[Skybird]

Careful there, Rockstar. Russia may not be able to maintain a long lasting war over wider parts of Europe against a well-prepared NATO - but it can decisively and quickly gain geographical advantages and objectives in the Polish-Baltic region, as just one exmaple, - and defend these territories, denying NATO access to these territories. It has been admitted repeatedly by highranking NATO and US generals that NATO (and that means the US in Eastern Europe, do not count on the capacity of the German forces, they are in an awful state) cannot defend these territories, if the Russians would start serious business on militarily conquering these. And then digging themselves in and denying aerial access to these regions. A NATO attempt to reconquer these territories later on, against a well prepared Russian defence, without air superiority, would become an extremely costly endavour, and would also mean total destruction of the affected states themselves. Also, the public opinion in at least Europe would not support this. Maybe with the exception of the Eastern Europeans and the stubborn blockheads on the British isles a huge majority in Europe is not capable to even imagine anymore that there could be reasons why it should even want to defend against Russian aggression - that means to fight, that means to be in a conflict, you see. Do not demand so much of stressful things from us! Better talk. Endlessly. That the other side does not leave it to talking, or abuses the time spend on it, is unimaginable for many people.

Its one thing to send an expeditionary force to somewhgere overseas and have it doing some - relatively unrisky- air operations there. Its somethign very different to send massive troop contingents on the ground and see own men returning home in thousands of body bags.

Just that because the Russians cannot storm to the Rhine in 7 days anymore, or less, does not mean one should underestimate them. Even already during the cold war I would have not taken it as granted that NATO would have stopped Russia without nukes. And that ignores for a moment that Russia most likely would have used nukes from day one, hour one on itself. Nukes would not have been escalated to, but would have been the opening.

As I mentioned some weeks earlier, google for the socalled Suwalki gap. And consider their presence in the Kaliningrad enclave. They can deny aerial area access already now, if they want it, they seem to have all needed platforms and hardware in place already. That pulls many of NATO's remaining teeth, since it depends so heavily on air superiority.

[Skybird]

And just after I typed the above, a German news article links me to this:

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/ne...mits-tsl7j63f5

Focussing on the British forces only, the article lists a worrying vulnerability of British vehicles to mortar fire and rockets, Russian technological superiority in air defence and missle artillery, Russian superiority in hacking enemy computer and electronics networks and hijacking them, even hijacking drones, manipulatiopn and neutrlaization of the GPS-based network itself as well as relying platforms. The internal study concludes that in case of a direct coinfrotnation between Russian and British forces, the Russians would be very substantially superior in capabilities and effectiveness.

And that does not even consider elemental numbers and force sizes.

There are other fields of military technology where the Russians are known to excel in since long: AAMs on fighter planes, certain tank-related technologies. The wars of the past decades always have been fought against Russian export tehcnologies, not original platforms they use themsleves. And export versions are always weaker derivates of the originals. You do not give away your military crown jewels. Not if you are sane in your head, and can control your greed for coins and banknotes a bit.

[mapuc]

I have until now thought that all this Military buildup in Crimea and on the Border between Russia and Crimea was to say to the leaders in Ukraine

Crimea is our-stay out

Not a military buildup to invade Ukraine.

Markus

[Oberon]

It is entirely possible that Russia could overrun any of the Baltic states (the current favourite amongst analysts is Latvia) in short order and there would be little that NATO could do about it, and to be honest I've always had a bit of a hunch that the eastward expansion of NATO was always intended to be a bit of a buffer zone to trade land for response time for any potential Russian westward advance.
The trickier part is estimating what NATO would do when presented with a fait accompli by Moscow, there would have to be some kind of measure undertaken by NATO in retaliation in order to ensure the continued existence of the organisation, otherwise trust in NATO will hit an all time low if it is shown that it cannot and will not defend member nations.
It's good money that any retaliatory reponse by NATO would be pointed firmly at Kaliningrad, and what Russias response would be to the invasion of what it considers sovereign Russian soil is difficult to ascertain, needless to say it would likely involve continued escalation and the longer any conflict between NATO and Russia goes on, the more likely it is that one side will pop the nuclear cork, and from there it's limited escalation until someone either turns it off or we go full exchange and that's game over.

So ultimately the response to any Russian attack on the Baltics is probably the hardest decision that any organisation will have to take, and since NATO revolves around international agreement, and you can guarantee that there will be members of NATO who will not want to go to war with Russia over the Baltics, Germany probably, Norway and Iceland too since they would be in the firing line, Turkey is an unknown quantity at this stage, but the Eastern states would all be in favour of marching to Moscow and burning down the Kremlin, in fact it would be hard to stop them.
And while NATO is still deciding what to do next, little green men would probably appear in Talinn and Vilnius...

[Dowly]

Let us just hug each other.

That'll work.

[Sailor Steve]

You are too far away to hug. Therefore you are my enemy. Die, scumbag!

[Dowly]

I think I have enough enemies.

*Hugs Steve*

That hair, is it not nice to keep it short?

[Oberon]

[Schroeder]

Originally Posted by Oberon

Because you've got something that I want and I'm stronger than you!