Poland`s aid to Ukraine if Russia invades

Progress... right... I'll believe it when I see it...


There were two of them, I watched a video in which the other journalist said what happened - they went there to film the refugees escaping, they went into a car in order to get to some bridge and at some post Russians just started shooting at them o_O

Do they say the same things the Americans were saying in Iraq?


Wait a minute ... What about those sanctions? Didn't work as intended? How about sending the EU troops to liberate Crimea...
Better yet, the brave Polish army. Especially now that the Russians are busy in Ukraine.

@Novichok, I don't know what Americans were saying in Iraq (probably the same thing and even believed it), but what Ukrainians have to do with what Americans were doing or saying in Iraq? Do tell.

Russia and Europe swallow everything that is made in the USA so I am wondering where the Russians learned that "liberators" thing.
We expected flowers in Iraq. Instead, we got IEDs.

@Novichok
Once again your feeble mind brings nothing to the table. Sanctions have nothing to do with territory already annexed by Russia, in case you can not follow a timeline.

@Paulina
Russians are simply animals. It is within each and every one of them. They are just $hit*y people. The only ones I have met that are worth a F are living in the USA and have citizenship. Usually very proud Americans who want nothing to do with Russia.

I think they said.... "А у вас негров линчуют"

Rich's version of Star Wars...

twitter.com/Coruscant_Times/status/1501205281862299655

Actually, it was Russians who invented that "liberators" bullsh1t, or rather the Soviets, to be more precise. Real liberators leave eventually when asked politely, just like Americans did. The Soviet Union had to be brought to its knees in order to leave the "liberated" nations alone.

Btw, Saddam Hussein was a dictator. Zelensky was elected in democratic elections. That makes what Russians are doing significantly worse.


And Russians are getting blown up by Javelins in Ukraine. Didn't they get the message yet? Why don't Russians learn from other countries' mistakes? Or even on their own mistakes... *sigh*

Yep, in essence.


Also, very true.

Consider where the Russian tanks are annexed and move on.
Did you consider hopping in the next train to Lwow to help prevent more annexations?


They did. Looked up Iraq on google maps and measured 7000 miles. Good. Then Ukraine...Oh fu*ck...zero miles. Not good.
Do you know the difference between 7000 and zero?

Given that the biggest sanctions in 2014 were applied to DNR/LNR and Crimea - I wonder if the West will maintain this approach when Ukraine is occupied? Somehow I doubt it.

It's very hard to imagine that Ukrainians will be cut off from McDonald's and Zara - this is simply inhumane. Maybe this is Putin's end goal. That is, the lifting of McDonald's sanctions on Russia in exchange for allowing McDonald's to operate in Ukraine?

McDonald's was a strategic move to make Russians fat and unfit to serve in the Russian army. The US has some serious problems with finding healthy recruits.

Or course the sanctions would also apply to any land under Russian occupation and any and all humanitarian disasters are on Russia (which initiated this disaster).

When is the Russian stock market opening again?

@Novichok
Actually, I am waiting here with a beautiful German Haenel MK in case I see a Russian in uniform on my street. If I did not have a family, yes, I would go and use a sniper rifle without question. Or I would go to Chicago.

As for Crimea, I actually have to agree with Putin that it is ethnically Russian, and should probably be a Russian territory. Donetsk and Luhansk, no, Kherson, no. Unlike you, I have actually been to all of these area's. Donbass just in October. I went through the check points, and it is a Ukraine dominated society without question, the Russians control with mafia, weapons and intimidation only, they are not a majority.

I would extend them - I mean the sanctions - to the lands Russians are thinking about occupying.

Oh, please, spare me this bullsh1t. NATO doesn't want to invade Russia. And the US doesn't invade it's peers, only some small sh1tholes, just like Russia was doing so far (until it invaded Ukraine, which is somewhat bigger). Russia has nukes and so it can feel safe - end of story.

Poland has been in NATO for 23 years and what? And nothing. Did NATO put nuclear warheads in Poland or the Baltic states? Nope, even though Russia has nukes in Kaliningrad - right on NATO and Polish border.

And you can see how "willing" NATO is to go to war with Russia (let alone invade it or occupy it! lol). So cut the crap.

Ah yes - the Russian stock market. Thank you for not asking me about ration cards this time.

Russians don't give a **** about the stock market. Maybe if five, or ten more years went by and the proportion of retail investors involved in the market increased we could talk about far reaching and long lasting consequences. In actual fact, the amount of Russians exposed to the stock market was around 14 million people last year, or around 10% of the population. There is no comparable correlation as there is in the United States between a stock market collapse and the wiping out of the pension and other savings of the population.

Basically, Russians will not feel anything when the market reopens. What I am afraid of, is that unscrupulous Westerners as well as opportunistic Chinese will find the valuations on these companies to be just too good to resist. Some of the most valuable energy companies in the world are trading at cents to the dollar. This would actually be unpleasant, if through Russia's struggles a bunch of Americans and Chinese came to own large chunks of the equity.

Maybe Russia needs to rethink its system of governance... a tsar who cannot be displaced form office is not really a very good option.

Why can't Russians create something more positive?

@mafketis

Russians can and do create many positive things. It's just that they can't shake a persistent feeling that every time they get close to rising from their knees their "friends" and "partners" in the west begin to put spokes in Russia's wheels.

There is a long history to this. I can go to the beginning, but let's look instead at just modern history. In the 19th century it was Britain and France preventing Russia from taking Constantinople in the Crimean War. In effect, helping an even more despotic and corrupt Ottoman Empire continue to exist. Thankfully, Russia managed to free Greece and Bulgaria despite the best efforts of it's "friends".

After WW1, our friends did what later they would do to Yeltsin. Basically tossed Kerensky to the wolves and did nothing about the humiliating peace imposed on Russia by the defeated Germans. In short order this led to the October Revolution. Then, in the Russian Civil War it was basically the entire Western world that came down like locusts onto Russian land. Attacking from the East, West, North, and South. Then in the 1940s another fellow came around that wanted to save Europe from Russia. In the 1990s it was Western vampiric "investors" and the clear message that Russia does not belong in EU, NATO, WTO (this, even though Communist China was admitted into WTO).

At some point, Russians seem to have decided that it's better to "eat" the cost of confronting the West NOW, then dealing with this bullsh!t for all eternity.

How did their "friends" and "partners" in the west decide that Russia needed to invade Ukraine?


You're leaving out the part where the USSR helped build that country's army to the point that it was an existential threat to the USSR itself...


What kind of world order do Russians want? How would the countries that border it fare if Russians were to rise from their knees?

Or that's what they are being told by their crappy ruling elites all the time.....a people believing "the West" is out to get them will rally at home and support the stupidest sh*it!

A game as old as mankind....sadly supported because Russia is so big and the possibilities to listen to other, better news so rare....

In the end they will pay the same price as the Germans once did, for their ignorance or plain disinterest!

Oh, spare me this bullsh1t about invading Russia. NATO wants to surround Russia with tripwire devices aka Article 5. Like land mines.


No, because nukes, children, can be very, very far away and still be really, really scary. But Poland being another Article 5 tripwire is just as scary with no nukes. Technically, if one Russian soldier crosses into Poland and shoots one drunk Polish a-hole who punched that Russian and we have WW3 in the making. This is Article 5 and its purpose.

For the record, if the US was not in NATO, I wouldn't give a ff about Article 5.

And there's a very good example of why going on right now.....

Right now that sounds really splendid to me! Imagine a Russia unable to invade and destroy its neighbours because they all are members of NATO!

How many lives would be spared, cities not destroyed, refugees who could stay at home.....

Yeah, because clearly NATO is aiming to bait Russia into triggering WWIII? This argument is so stupid. There are no land mines or tripwires. Russia just needs to not attack NATO members and nothibg happens.

The purpose of Article 5 is to deter any Russian invasion, not to provoke it.

Ideally - a Russian dominated world order. Short of that - one where Russia's interests are respected and taken into account - as has been the tradition with every great power since the beginning of time. A large nation should not have its progress vetoed at every step by some insecure pigmies populating the south east Baltic coast.

I think those countries would fare well. Poland was the industrial heart of the Russian's empire economy. Finland similarly prospered. Riga was one of the major ports of the world. The central Asian republics were developed to near European standards, through the introduction of railroads, universities, hospitals. The Armenians, Azeris, and Georgians freed from the Shahs of Iran, flourished.

The various indigenous peoples of Siberia and the Far East were saved from becoming diluted into Han Chinese, with their culture and traditions preserved. In short - you cannot compare Russia's "land colonialism" with the grotesque "overseas colonialism" of Euros. When Russians come, they come to stay. They take care of what belongs to them instead of sucking it dry.

Do you really think this answer would be different if asked of a Chinese or American?

They fare much better in NATO and the EU in every possible way.


They are not sucking it dry, they are dragging it down to their level.

But not to Putin.


I am sure Russia would have a better reason to do it to the zero-distance neighbors than the US had while 7000 miles away.

In your opinion, does Russia have a monopoly on recklessness and Russians on deathwish? Really. Just look at the relevant numbers. Why would they be doing what they are doing in Ukraine?

Please do not tell me it's Putin's ego. With those alleged billions and that gigantic table, his ego box is already checked.

THEY HAD THAT!

Especially as Germany did bend backwards to accomodate Russia's interests.....we even got so far to make ourselves dependent on russian ressources....we sold Crimea to the other EU countries, kept Ukraine "out"....did EVERYTHING the czar in the Kremlin could ask for and more!

No more!

Now Russia has become the pariah and will pay the price....and rightfully so. If that is about "russian interests" then Putin is a damned bad servant!


You know my theory....he has become an old, sad, crazy sack of ****. He killed/deported/jailed all smarties who dared to contradict him, and that is now the result!

@Bobko
This is what you don't understand. The west, does not care about Russia or its people. We don't have to. Each country cares about its own, like Russia should. Russia has failed at economic growth each and every time. It is an economic disaster not because of anyone else but its own people.

It is a country of criminals and corruption. I have dealt with it. It is a land of paper bags full of money gets things done, again I have been a part of this. It is a country of intimidation, that's why I always had former KGB as hired bodyguards even when I had proper visa and invitations from powerful people.

30 years you have had to get yourselves together and all you have done is rob the government and the people blind. Your paranoia is only exceeded by your inferiority complex. Blame everyone else for keeping you down instead of actually doing something to raise yourselves up. No innovation. No manufacturing of any consequence. No science or technology. Nothing that is in demand. Putin and his Oligarchs dont even let Russians build their Fing super yachts. Thats how much your leader and the wealthy think of Russia.

Stop pointing fingers and get to work. Maybe then people will begin to respect you.

I love these ideas of Russian progress - in fact it's refusal to reform and adopt democracy has left it a backward kleptocracy, corrupt and venal and still with awful food.

I wonder what the Russian war aims are now - a puppet regime can't be installed now and it has just encouraged all of its neighbors to rearm, it has taken a step back in its economy that will take 5-10 years to mend and it has proved the ineptness and corruption of its military.