That way they can stop fighting and just say that they won. Because, that's clearly how things work. Drive out the population in a war, install your own government, hold a fake vote, and call it done. Russia is then able to say that Ukraine is attacking sovereign Russian land and Ukraine is the one trying to expand their land area.

I wonder if the vote to join Russia will be 99% or 100% in favor.

JUST IN - Russia's Putin and Defense Minister Shoigu are expected to address the nation tonight, according to Kremlin pool reporters.

— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) September 20, 2022

(Figured this topic was probably better discussed in a separate thread)

Agthatbuilds said:

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"In an another totally unexpected move"

Occupation authorities in parts of Kherson region also to hold fake poll on annexation by Russian Federation on 23-27 September https://t.co/H8sDRmkZrL #Ukraine

— Liveuamap (@Liveuamap) September 20, 2022

Russia is going to make ukraine a part of russia again.

Does that mean Russia will consider nato as attacking Russia proper? Will nato take the bait?

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This is actually worse than many think. Though it is obvious they're losing ground, I think they will use this referendum to then say that Ukraine is attacking Russian sovereign territory and move to some other weapons that they haven't used yet. Putin would use this to justify using WMDs

My mom's family is from Kiev and they have always considered themselves Russian.

They did this in Crimea successfully. The groundwork for this was laid across eastern Europe post-WWII. Stalin's tactic was to relocate the existing people to elsewhere in the USSR, move Russians into the area, and in a few generations it would be primarily Russian both in culture and ethnicity. The Nazis had the same idea for Poland, to get rid of the Poles and move German settlers in, making the area German. This was what the invasion of Poland was for.

It's effective. The people who live there matter more than the lines on the map in the long term, Putin is taking a more subversive approach with Ukraine, but it's the same playbook. The recent actions are more in line with what the Nazis did, getting rid of the locals through warfare, as opposed to relocation in peacetime, but it's the same playbook that Stalin used.

This is modern day colonialism, just done in a deliberate accelerated way. In 2-3 generations rather than 200-300 years.

I do wonder after 8 years of trying to get on with life how many average folk would now worry about being labeled as collaborators.

The Ukrainians in Slavutych at the wedding i attended (including a few mayor's of surrounding towns) all considered themselves Ukrainians. Many having families, grandparents, that suffered through the Holodomr and Chernobyl.

Met around 100-150 people, so small sample size. SLAVA UKRAINE! Ukraine Slava! toasts throughout the wedding with Neverending vodka shots and foods. So much ****ing fun. Completely immersed us all in their Ukrainian heritages and cultures and food and history and I hope more people get to experience this type of hospitality in your life... truly eye opening experience.



Just like gogol says it

Also many of the wedding parties participated in the "winter of fire" (Netflix doc) which the groom and bride had me watch in Krakow before we traveled to Lyviv and Kyiv and onto Slavutych.

We might as well do this with Mexico. It seems like it'd be much easier to defend their southern border than ours.

One of the more recent (2013) Jack Ryan books covers Russia invading Ukraine. I know it's a book of fiction, but Tom Clancy's politics and technology are usually pretty accurate, so I was wondering how much of what happens in the book reflects reality? (Edit: Mark Greaney was the actual writer)

In the book, Russia offers dual citizenship to basically any person that wants to apply that still lives in one of the old USSR countries. Anyone who permanently moves there from Russia also maintains dual citizenship. The Russian president then uses this as a justification that there are still a lot of Russian citizens that want to be a part of the mother country again, so he's not invading, just protecting his citizens from the abuses of NATO and the west.

Same strategy they've used elsewhere at border regions they want to take.

They send in agents to foment local discontent and form activist Russian nationalist political groups in a region and then slowly agitate towards more violent separatist activity and then try to step in and support the separation they initiated and agitated for years.

MouthBQ98 said:

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Same strategy they've used elsewhere at border regions they want to take.

They send in agents to foment local discontent and form activist Russian nationalist political groups in a region and then slowly agitate towards more violent separatist activity and then try to step in and support the separation they initiated and agitated for years.

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they didn't have to do much of that in Ukraine. Old people there and their kids - boomer-aged - still think of themselves as Russian. Most Ukrainians, old and young, know their governments have been installed by various foreign actors and used as puppets and they have been full of corruption since the country was founded. Many of them want sovereignty and no one wanted to be invaded, but there was already plenty of discontent for their own government. The west provoked putin with all the threats of Nato entry and all the corruption, putting their rich kids on the boards of directors at Ukrainian companies, making threats so they would hire or fire whomever they wanted within their own government. The people there don't deserve to be raided by Russia and they don't deserve to be manipulated or living under a regime that is being used as pawns by the likes of the CIA. If Putin has a vote there and the people who remain there choose for part of Ukraine to be part of Russia, then at least there will be peace, no matter how fair anyone thinks the "election" would be. American's certainly can't throw stones about fair elections. Putin would inherit all the weapons and equipment the world has provided them, but hey, we already gave a bunch to the taliban too. Just get to peace and stop sending money and equipment asap.

Yes, we certainly foment dissent and overthrow governments when it is to our strategic advantage.

But Putin's huge blunder in this case was overestimating his military strength against advanced western weaponry, intel, and tactics. You do have to wonder if he was tricked into invading by false intel in a 'rope-a-dope' strategy. Because they've gotten played on the battlefield.

Having said that, the zen master story at the end of Charlie Wilson's War is appropriate here. Even if Ukraine takes back all of their land there is no telling what the long term implications of this war are.

Our government might be more corrupt than Ukraine's. (Not really joking)

• Congress insider trading
• FBI and USPS targeting political rivals
• Election fraud
• DOJ locking people up for months for "trespassing"
• FBI having different sets of rules if you are on the right team
• Raiding a former president's home because you don't want him to run again
• Current president taking millions of dollars in bribe money
• Silencing the opposition through speech censorship
• Forcing people to take experimental medicines to be able to go out in public
• etc etc

Spare me the tired old argument of "but, Ukraine is corrupt". They were still invaded by another country and they have a right to their borders.

yeah. historians can argue later on about why the west provoked this invasion and Putin's blunders once he invaded. I just want them to get to peace and stop warring. ...the flip side of Putin's blunder, the west's biggest blunder might have facilitated even closer ties and alignment between China, Iran, and Russia as they march the world closer to WWIII.

you don't have to argue with me about our corruption... I threw in Biden's Ukraine activities and our own phony election in my post. The USA really has no business "defending democracy" abroad - anywhere - any more.

oh no said:

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yeah. historians can argue later on about why the west provoked this invasion and Putin's blunders once he invaded. I just want them to get to peace and stop warring. ...the flip side of Putin's blunder, the west's biggest blunder might have facilitated even closer ties and alignment between China, Iran, and Russia as they march the world closer to WWIII.

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OK, I'll play. How did the west "provoke this invasion"?

one thing you are missing is that WHO WILL VOTE in these sham elections?!

with the Ukrainian Army coming close very few who live in Luhansk and Donetsk are going to want to be shot as collaborators

with the Red Army still around, very few who live in Luhansk and Donetsk will want to vote for the Ukrainians and be shot by the Russians

there will be 15 people voting in these "elections" that the entire world (except Iran, North Korea, Syria and China) will call invalid

MouthBQ98 said:

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Same strategy they've used elsewhere at border regions they want to take.

They send in agents to foment local discontent and form activist Russian nationalist political groups in a region and then slowly agitate towards more violent separatist activity and then try to step in and support the separation they initiated and agitated for years.

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sounds a bit like the German strategy in eastern europe from 1938-1940

Serotonin said:

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That area has been Russian ethnic majority for a long time:


Of course they would rather be part of Russia, if they stay in Ukraine the prospects will be...not good.

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Now overlay the petroleum pipeline map...

LMCane said:

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one thing you are missing is that WHO WILL VOTE in these sham elections?!

with the Ukrainian Army coming close very few who live in Luhansk and Donetsk are going to want to be shot as collaborators

with the Red Army still around, very few who live in Luhansk and Donetsk will want to vote for the Ukrainians and be shot by the Russians

there will be 15 people voting in these "elections" that the entire world (except Iran, North Korea, Syria and China) will call invalid

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Oh, I'm not missing that at all. This isn't an election.

FriscoKid said:

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oh no said:

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yeah. historians can argue later on about why the west provoked this invasion and Putin's blunders once he invaded. I just want them to get to peace and stop warring. ...the flip side of Putin's blunder, the west's biggest blunder might have facilitated even closer ties and alignment between China, Iran, and Russia as they march the world closer to WWIII.

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OK, I'll play. How did the west "provoke this invasion"?

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Let's just imagine that California liberates itself from the USA. Becomes it's own country for a couple of decades. The rest of USA knows a lot of people there, has family there. Talks to them. Still travels there. Trips to Napa or Disneyland, Fisherman's wharf, Lake Tahoe, etc.. Many Californians still think of themselves as Americans even though they aren't anymore, especially the ones who were American for a part of their lives. The young ones are proud of the country of California, but most Californians, both young and old, know the current version of their government was installed by the CCP after they interfered and ousted the previous version that was installed by Washington DC, and this one is corrupt asF just like the last one was. In fact, Chairman Xi starts issuing threats that he would withhold aide for their rolling power outages unless California's government fires a federal prosecutor who was looking into a corruption charge at a CA company where Xi's son sits on the board. Now, there's a lot of talk of California being granted membership to the China-Russia-Iran alliance, where they could share or build military installations. Would you expect our government in DC to sit back and let that happen to our neighbors that used to be part of us, knowing that many of their people, except for those in San Fran and LA and their leader in Sacramento, would want to unite back with the Union again?

Just for the sake of argument, how do we juxtapose this against the history of Texas. Thought that might be an interesting comparison.

where did i say kindness of his heart? them becoming a nato member is a direct threat to him as the west would have military presence at his border.

At the end of the day he invaded because the West crossed an intolerable red line with NATO cozying up to Ukraine. We called his bluff and now Ukraine has to pay the price in blood while we pay the price in money.

ETA- The Russians' biggest mistakes were drastically underestimating the degree of ethnogenesis that has taken place since 2014 and the West's willingness to fight a proxy war at the expense of their own peoples' living standards.

oh no said:

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where did i say kindness of his heart? them becoming a nato member is a direct threat to him as the west would have military presence at his border.

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That makes no sense. if Putin had taken all of Ukraine, he goes to the borders with NATO countries.

Quote:

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At the end of the day he invaded because the West crossed an intolerable red line with NATO cozying up to Ukraine. We called his bluff and now Ukraine has to pay the price in blood while we pay the price in money.

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I guess he'll be invading Finland and Sweden next then, and they'll pay the price in blood too for their temerity in choosing to join NATO. Putin has red lines about what other countries do, so he has no choice but to invade them too.

aggiehawg said:

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oh no said:

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where did i say kindness of his heart? them becoming a nato member is a direct threat to him as the west would have military presence at his border.

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That makes no sense. if Putin had taken all of Ukraine, he goes to the borders with NATO countries.

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If he takes the whole thing, he gains a natural defensive barrier with the Carpathian Mountains. Historically Russian doctrine has favored such natural features. Otherwise he is more than happy to turn Ukraine into a buffer state within his sphere of influence as it was before 2014 or so.

Quote:

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the West crossed an intolerable red line with NATO cozying up to Ukraine.

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Joining NATO looks pretty attractive now for Ukraine, and for good reason. Once again, you don't think they have a right to defend themselves. I don't get it dude.

MouthBQ98 said:

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Just for the sake of argument, how do we juxtapose this against the history of Texas. Thought that might be an interesting comparison.

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I don't really think it's close to any kind of real comparison. Ukraine originally declared independence from Russia in 1917, the Bolshevik's immediately took it back. Then the USSR collapsed, and they declared independence again. Russia has wanted it back in some fashion ever since then, and the numbers just made sense for them.

Texas was originally part of Mexico, but was never really a part of it politically. The Mexicans didn't want to deal with the Comanche. They basically saw the white settlers moving there from the US as the perfect meat shield from the Indians for their real citizens. Texas finally got tired of Santa Anna and declared independence, fought and won. They wanted it back still, and got pissed when the US grabbed them up instead.

If any comparison is to be made, this conflict is closest to the Mexican-American war, where the Ukraine is Texas, the US is NATO, and Mexico is Russia.

They know time is running out. They can only walk all over the US and steal Ukraine land, when a dem is in office. Took Crimea under Obama, got wrist slapped by Trump, now taking eastern Ukraine under Biden....but they see DeSantis and Trump on horizon. Got to pull out all the stops.