People, read and learn:
"There was a time, not too long ago, when people debated if sending helmets to Ukrainian soldiers would cross russia’s “red line”. Seriously.
Yet every single time one of russia’s so-called red lines is crossed, the people telling you to fear apocalyptic consequences suddenly lose interest in that one. It’s always the next red line we are supposed to fear.
Remember when russia held a big ceremony with all its elites to celebrate its illegal annexation and declared those territories “russia forever”?
Commentators insisted that meant there’s no way the russian psyche could ever possibly handle any loss of that occupied territory without those mysterious souls resorting to nuclear Armageddon.
Yet the ceremonial ink was barely dry when russia made more “tactical retreats” (or “goodwill gestures”) and hardly anyone in russia cared.
Remember the moskva was hailed by russia as a proudly unsinkable flagship. Then it was just an old ship whose loss was no big deal. ‘Look, here’s most of the crew in a parade’, they showed off afterwards. ‘This is fine’.
It’s always russia that afterwards dismisses any suggestion of humiliation to the point that it’s illegal to criticise the military for withdrawals and losses anyway.
The latest example is, of course, Ukraine’s devastatingly effective strikes on the black sea fleet in Crimea where the temporary occupation is becoming increasingly untenable.
You’d think the fact this hasn’t resulted in WW3 would be a bigger story. Remember, a lot of people with way too much influence insisted that would be the case.
The real story though is how many Ukrainian lives have been wasted by not giving Ukraine more help and more quickly. This will be the story of this war that future generations studying this period will scorn us for.
In the Baltics, we know a thing or two about how russia’s threats work (and how to ensure they don’t work).
For decades, the Baltics have been told we are risking russia’s wrath when standing up to it. But, to us, only international law constitutes red lines. It is this attitude that has kept us free, secure, prosperous independent democracies.
Russia’s aggression is still based on its old adage: “Push through mush, stop at steel”. The aggression will always worsen when it perceives weakness and when it believes it can get away with few consequences. Like when we get mushy over their imaginary red lines. That enables russia to advance and keep insisting that it has more red lines. When Russia advances on that weakness and feels fewer consequences, its threats get louder. The real risk of a much larger war will also increase when russian aggression is rewarded.
This isn’t 4D chess. Russia is just a classic bully, as sophisticated as in any school playground.
Conversely, russia de-escalates when it encounters strength. Don’t worry about what excuses it will have to tell its people. It will lie as it always does. It will ignore the contradictions with its previous positions. And almost no one in russia will care.
Russia lied itself into this war and can always as easily lie itself out of it.
It’s time to remember what red lines really matter for our world. Aggressors don’t set them. That’s how world wars start. Instead, we have the UN Charter and international law. That’s how we ended the last world war. We agreed all sovereign nations could rule themselves and choose their own security alliances. We agreed we’d never again let aggressors tear up borders and commit genocide.
The Baltics tried to warn the world in 2014 that if russia didn’t face proper consequences for invading and occupying Crimea, it would keep escalating. And so it did. The world should have helped Ukraine more then.
But it’s never too late to help Ukraine more now. We will all always pay a higher price next time if we shirk our responsibility to confront aggression.
If you want de-escalation, support a victory for Ukraine and a tribunal for russia."
Source:
Bad Baltic Takes
This precise strike would be impossible.
