Poland's aid to Ukraine if Russia invades - part 21

What treaty - besides the Budapest Memorandum (which was no treaty at all) did Putin break?

Ukraine failed to respect Crimea's autonomy as promised in its 1991 constitution. Correct? Correct.

Ukraine failed to implement the Minsk I and Minsk II Accords, despite having nearly a decade to do it. Instead, it spent all of its time trying to weasel out of doing what it promised to do. Correct? Correct.

Ukraine unilaterally abrogated the Kharkov Agreements - which extended the Black Sea Fleet's lease in Sevastopol through the middle of the century. Correct? Correct.

Ukraine routinely stole gas intended for Europeans while it was transiting through their country. Correct? Correct.

What does Putin do which is not consistent?

For me it is this TREATY which springs to mind foremost....Ukraine giving up their nukes in believing Moscow for more or less eternal peace!
That was an error which still makes waves and it will be difficult to near impossible in the future to find other countries to do the same, giving up their nukes for peace. Rather new ones will be build or bought, even by those who never had ones, with this bad example always in mind!

You can call it what you want, officially it was the "Budapest Memorandum" (1994) but in people's mind it will always be an important treaty Russia broke!

...."Putin told me in 2011, three years before he took Crimea, that he did not agree with the agreement I made with Boris Yeltsin, that they would respect Ukraine's territory if they gave up their nuclear weapons," Clinton said on Thursday at a public discussion at 92nd Street Y, a Jewish cultural and community centre in New York.

"Putin said to me: '... I know Boris agreed to go along with you and John Major and Nato, but he never got it through the Duma [Russian parliament]. We have our extreme nationalists too. I don't agree with it and I do not support it and I'm not bound by it.'.....

theguardian.com/world/2023/may/05/we-knew-putin-would-attack-ukraine-back-in-2011-says-bill-clinton

And Ukraine failed Minsk I and Minsk II ???

....In September 2014-in the wake of Russia's illegal seizure of Crimea, its creation of irregular forces to take portions of the Ukrainian regions of Luhansk and Donetsk, and finally the insertion of regular Russian forces into those territories-the Ukrainian government, the Russian government, and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) negotiated the Minsk Protocol and Accompanying Memorandum. Minsk I, as it came to be known, called for a ceasefire and prisoner exchanges. The fighting continued, however, with continued gains by both the Russian irregular and regular forces, and by January 2015 the agreement collapsed. Seeking to restore the peace, a Franco-German-led initiative resulted in a new agreement, dubbed Minsk II and again signed by representatives of the OSCE, Ukraine, and Russia, creating a second ceasefire.

Russian forces proceeded to violate that agreement and, after taking additional territory, halted-leaving an uneasy truce in place. Finally, in February 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared that Minsk II no longer existed and then proceeded to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.....

Even if Putin would subscribe to any compromise, a heavy doubt would stay.....

As a Russophile I have to protest. It is not Russia, it is the putinist regime that has to be removed.

As for Russia, it is the third cannibal, the only one of the three that still exists and he needs to be punished. Truth and Justice demand it. History demands it. But the punishment can be brotherly, mild, educational and good for the world as a whole.

Leave it to Poles. We are the key.

Tried that in 1992.... it didn't work.

Interesting interview with the always insightful Prof Sarah C.M. Paine, geopoltical strategist...

"How Superpowers Self-Destruct: Russian, Chinese & American Grand Strategy"

Everybody can find something to quibble with here or there but she makes a great case that russia... even if it 'wins' has already 'lost' even points out that taking Crimea wasn't a useful political goal as it's more or less useless as a naval station now.

Good point toward the end that russians have always defined their 'greatness' in terms of conquered territory and wishful thinking aside... a large majority support putin's war or he wouldn't be able to keep pursuing it (as stupid as it is).

youtube.com/watch?v=QT3hoxOwtgQ

Memo to dumb Polaks:

Russia is your friend. Work with them and you shall be rewarded as this video clearly shows.

That's a big error many western observer and analysts make....Putin gets its support from people who don't see Crimea and other contestet territories as some "political" goal....they don't mean "strategic value" when they talk about it, for them it's their lost Heimat, their own land, stolen...they want it back, no matter the human costs!

If something a German understands (and knows what it can lead to), its that!

That's why I think that question has to be solved with that in mind to, or that wound will stay open and fester...and flare up later again...and again....and again...

The only other way, to punch Russia into the ground and occupy it till all this pain has scabbed over, seems to me abit impossible!

If Putin would be only trustworthy....

You understand this, but many people do not.

I read an interview last week with a Ukrainian brigade commander. The reporter asks him, "What is the Russian motivation? Why do they march to their deaths like zombies? Why don't they disobey and desert?"

First, he confirms that it really is a vision from a horror movie to see a Russian assault. He says - not a single unit in the Ukrainian army - has men within it, that will advance alone after 95%+ of their assault force had been mowed down. But the Russian army does. He says, when you see the one surviving Russian soldier still marching resolutely at you - it chills the blood in your veins. As a Russian, this is the highest compliment to be received from the enemy.

He explains, that *he thinks* the Russians advance in this way, because the Russians - unlike the Ukrainians - act with the full confidence that "if we take it, it will be forever ours. Our children's, our grandchildren's."

Russians fight for land that is theirs.

It won`t be like that. Slovakia will also need compensations and Romania won`t get anything.

German general officers have remarked upon these aspects of Russian military culture, which Ukrainians are discovering for themselves.

Guderian:

"The difference between Russian and German bravery is that German soldiers are brave up to the point of death, while Russian soldiers are brave beyond it."

Hoepner:

"German bravery is guided by honor and reason; Russian bravery is that of a beast, primitive and boundless."

Very racist, very condescending, but still warms the heart.

Interesting to read some records of executions of Russians. Oftentimes the Russians laugh while the Germans shoot them. This also causes massive paranoia on part of Germans participating.

@Bobko

.....still....Putin should keep the fate of Germany in mind....there is a thing of "wanting to much"! He too has to respect a certain "red line" and make compromises....and keep to them!

The Ukrainians have shown great bravery and resistance because they fight for something they believe in. In democracies you can only coerce someone up to a point, at least since the death penalty for deserters has been abolished. Yet they persist.

While Russian officers are free all sort of depravities to "motivate" their men. Those are not the same.

Both engage in the same depravities.

1) Falling asleep on watch - taped to a tree with scotch tape, and pissed on by your comrades.

2) Drinking on the job - put in a pit, covered with a grate, and again pissed upon by your friends.

3) Refusal to go on assault - a strong punch to the face, a crack of a rifle butt to your spine, a spit in the face, and a curse weighted with a thousand year hatred.

4) Anti-social behavior - driven to suicide

5) Excessive sentimentality - same forced suicide

The army is no picnic. Hardened criminals that spent time in maximum security prisons, want to kill themselves to escape the torture of Russian military prisons or disciplinary battalions.

hey bobko u havent answered my quesiton man. why russia not poland?

If you and I were together at the front right now, I would send you as a gift to the Chechens so that they would get a few evenings of entertainment from you.

Once you had no teeth left, and could not do anything but crawl - they would repurpose you as an ammunition delivery donkey. You would make a good catcher for Ukrainian drones.

No, they dont.

Russian politician poses with sledgehammer in tribute to Wagner mercenaries

reuters.com/world/europe/russian-politician-poses-with-sledgehammer-tribute-wagner-mercenaries-2023-01-20/

With these team building methods it's really a mystery why the North Nigerians haven't enjoyed more success in combat.

You send slaves to fight free men, and the result is that it takes them a year to move 1km.

They stand like zombies in front of machine gun fire because they are drunk or on drugs.

This generation will be limping round the subways of North Nigeria for 4 decades, begging on crutches.

The army is a brutal place.

American soldiers caught on camera pissing on corpses of Taliban. Caught on camera playing with skulls. Aware?

Syrian commander, opens up a man's abdominal cavity and eats the liver raw?

Fighters in the Congo, eating the hearts of the enemy - to taste the adrenaline?

This is all 21st century. I don't know how you imagine the German army would behave if it were fighting for its life, not bombing some sheep herders in Kandahar.

1. Napoleon
2. Hitler
3. Zelensky
4. NATO
5. Sanctions

Yes, morons, Russia is the aggressor.

HBO did a fantastic job explaining the Russian mentality, in their documentary Chernobyl.

It's not drugs, or alcohol as CMS claims.

that was a heavy and god documentary and showed russians as people not mindless bots I might add but showed their humanity but wasnt that before the invasion of ukraine?

Only as brutal as the leadership permits it to be.

I am not even talking about atrocities commited by the Russians against their enemy, but against of their own.

They brutally murdered a soldier, and their leadership - if not ordered - encouraged it.

It is alcohol and it is drugs - maybe in addition to this mystical elan you describe

I am not even going to post links because there are hundreds of them

In many cases their own commanders are selling drugs to the troops

Of course drug use is common in pointless conflicts - was a major problem in Vietnam and Afghanistan

A joke.

Discipline is not eternal, within any organization.

Nearly every officer in history did not want his soldiers raping and looting - at least because it reduces (if even temporarily) his control over them. A taste of wanton civilian-style liberty - however brief - poisons the morale of personnel.

In general, murdering and raping innocents is not good for morale and discipline. Here, the interests of the rank and file do not align with the command.

Iron discipline within the organized formations, reduces the risk of excesses against civilians.

In the bigger picture - how do you propose to deal with an ******* that doesn't want to get his mass out of a trench and run across an open field with the others? Is he better than others? Is his life more valuable? Should we all sit down, and make sure we made enough allowance for his mental health?

Indeed - what if he never wanted to be here in the first place? Shouldn't we consider this? Perhaps write a letter to HQ? Get the press involved?

Hahaha.

As much as I don't like Trump he has a point when he says...


... I thought it was odd back then too - they didn't defend it, even symbolically.

Remember it was carried out _fast_ while the russian government was denying it was involved until after the phony 'referendum'.... everybody knew it was but they pretended and nobody denies Ukraine made a lot of mistakes from 1992-2014 (including dropping the ball after 2004).

The sheer lawlessness of it surprised everybody and IINM Barack Obama told them to do nothing.... he didn't want the US to support Ukraine at all...

The US has a long history of screwing over Ukraine in hopes of russia not being.... russia.....

The big problem was that russia was given massive aid from the west in the 1990s with no conditions attached.... they lost the cold war they should have been made to crawl over nails to get any support but the west stupidly thought they'd learned their lesson about trying to have a big empire.....

When was running across open fields last a successful tactic ? Maybe in Mongol times. Once guns was invented it became a useless tactic

Most armies don't worry about how to motivate their troops for this kind of assault, because they simply don't use these tactics anymore.

Modern armies more concentrate on giving the best equipment they can afford and using the most efficient tactics, with proper air cover

What?

Show me the proof maybe?

Yeah, Jeffrey Sachs stated multiple times that USA refused to emergency aid to russia that would have prevented the economic collapse (or two) in the 90s, because russia was still regarded as the enemy. Ironically it was these events that led to Putin.

It is a standard part of US Army tactical training, as I'm sure it is for Poland, and for Austria, and France, and every modern army in the world.

What if you don't have a sufficient number of planes, CMS? What if there are not enough precision missiles? What do we do then with all your doctrine and theory?

Infantry is the salt of the earth, and the oldest branch of combat forces. They participated in Neolithic squabbles between families, in Bronze Age wars, and now in every war on the globe. Ten thousand years from now, infantry will play a role.

If infantry have to advance, what do you do IF THERE IS AN OPEN FIELD? According to you, you just don't do it all...

You have to know how to do it, you have to know how to motivate the men to do it, and yes this involves enforcing some very drastic disciplinary measures - usually not seen or heard of.