Russia invades Ukraine
- Thread starter Perun
- Start date
Azas
At the Eternity's End
My impression is, they went completely off the rails.
Azas
At the Eternity's End
Thank God for the "healing" aid 
UpTheIrons
Ancient Mariner
This picture is a photoshop I am afraid, the face is that of a controversial Youtube personality called Sam Hyde. There is a meme involving photoshopping him into extreme situations like combat, terrorism etc.
Azas
At the Eternity's End
f*k
And this is why we need to be cautious. The Ghost of Kyiv is a fable, not fact, as far as I am concerned. A great fable that I desperately want to be true.
SWIFT isn't as important, I think. Russia has spent years building a SWIFT replacement for countries in their sphere, and Russian banks owe billions to banks in Germany and France. Cutting SWIFT absolves them of that debt, when we can simply use sanctions to stop Russian banks from accessing assets in the west (as has been announced).
Nordstream 1 is a bigger difficulty, but in general I agree - as long as we understand that energy prices will immediately skyrocket in Western Europe.
GhostofCain
Ancient Mariner
Big bully attitude.
GhostofCain
Ancient Mariner
Several images that have been circulating in social media seem to correspond to different conflicts. BBC Reality Check is a useful tool to keep track of some of those.
JudasMyGuide
The resident reactionary recalcitrant
Yeah, that bloke who looks at the Winter War and thinks "oh, my, that was a success alright, let's do that again", I wonder by what logic that mind operates.
Defeating Finland and Sweden is different than Ukraine, simply because Finland and Sweden participate in the EU shared defense scheme, as part of the Nordic deployments with (guess who) Denmark and Poland, and guess what happens if Russia attacks Danish or Polish troops? Article 5.
JudasMyGuide
The resident reactionary recalcitrant
Yeah, my point was that even Finland on its own was a bit more than they could chew back then. Let alone if these systems work. So threatening them feels ... really weird.
Needless to say, I really hope the NATO mechanisms will spring if we or Slovakia get attacked. If, because it doesn't feel that crazy up close. Ukraine is, like, almost closer than your daily North-American commute
____no5
Free Man
Valid point but even without that, it sounds like an empty, limit laughable (or tragic) threat. They are out of their minds to say that. Even with SWIFT in place they don't have the economy to operate in another front. Plus against EU countries? This would be the guaranteed end of Putin, Russia and probably World as we know it.
I really hope the German government will agree eventually, but it's an entirely new government with mostly inexperienced people, so I really can't make a prediction which way they will fall eventually.