This thread is meant to be a place to leave thoughts and feelings about the current political situation around Ukraine. Feel free to discuss the matter. If you can provide sources explaining the situation and motivations of individual parties in an unbiased way, feel free to share those as well.

Upfront notice:

We expect every one of you to respect each other and keep this discussion civil. This is an extremely emotional, hard to grasp topic and not a few of us here are or will be personally affected by these events. Listen to each other and remember that a state is a political entity and not a collective of synchronized minds.

Any "Fuck X" or similar statements will be removed and we will give warnings and time-outs to anyone failing to contribute more than polemic. Please take this situation as serious as it is for the people involved.

The Russians have conquered Snake Island, a small island that is about 45 km away from my country.

"According to audio shared by Ukrayinska Pravda, when the Russian cruiser identified itself and instructed the Ukrainian soldiers to surrender, or else be fired upon, their response was 'Go fuck yourself, Russian warship'."

Written by RaduP on 25.02.2022 at 10:28

"According to audio shared by Ukrayinska Pravda, when the Russian cruiser identified itself and instructed the Ukrainian soldiers to surrender, or else be fired upon, their response was 'Go fuck yourself, Russian warship'."

And here it is:

Written by Shmelevod on 25.02.2022 at 11:38

If we could encourage the bands that are planning to visit Russia anytime soon to cancel their concerts with clear and sound anti-war statements, this could be a small step to changing public opinion.

In fact if everybody started boycotting russia in what they can, this war could end pretty quickly.

Written by Bad English on 25.02.2022 at 17:07
Solution is every EU and Nato country needs to have a own nukes

You realize that the USA, UK, and France are very much part of NATO right?
You should also be aware of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. There is not and should not be any way for a country without nuclear WMDs to acquire them.

Also, nuclear weapons are mostly strategic weapons and serve pretty much only as deterrence. Any thought of actual use in tactical warfare is beyond ludicrous. The whole argument is bullshit.

Putin wants to reform the Soviet Union. And stepping stone was removal of Yanukovych. Territorial shifts with Donbas and annexation of Crimea gave Putin to flex his powers to reform Soviet Union. What becoming more incessant is his obsession with NATO alliances.

It's fucking all out for Ukraine.

Written by Bad English on 25.02.2022 at 11:50

Schalke 04 tock away Gazprom logo
F1 team tock away Russian sponsor name

FK Austria Wien also took away Gazprom and the f1 team haas (only american team) drops Uralkali sponsor, russian flags and maybe will fire the russian driver Mazepin

And Russia was also dropped by eurovision

Our western world, whence reached that tipping point beyond our control, always seems to inevitably turn upon the Mother Russia. With the western abandonment of Faith, only the way of the warrior can restore that which we are all striving to attain.

The question is not who or what is to blame, but what will be the outcome??

I think this is the tipping point of no return in relations between Russia and NATO ever.

From what I know Hungary is pro Russia even tho they are in nato and eu

Written by Bad English on 26.02.2022 at 13:29
Only fool has trusted to Russia, I warned people about Russia in Georgia war days ..... but.

Dude, seriously. Do you have anything to contribute to this topic that is not smart-assery? Can you even appreciate the complexity of a problem without jumping to premature conclusions?

All you had to say about this whole, extremely complex and hard to grasp situation so far is either "I told you you so", or "<country X>/<confederation/alliance Y> needs to acquire <weapon Z>".

Nobody here expects you to solve a global diplomatic incident.
I have no idea how or where you developed that weapons fetish you clearly seem to have, but thinking global peace can only be achieved through WMD-deterrence is the most black-and-white perspective on global politics I have ever heard.

How do you think will it help people struggling to understand what is happening in their or a neighboring country right now, who are afraid for their friends, their families, or even their own lives, to hear that an anonymous rando from an internet metal forum knew all this all along and none of this would have happened if several generations of the world's diplomats had only listened to him all along?

This crisis is very real to many people. Some of them are reading along here. Some may be Ukranian and personally affected, some Russian, having their country violate international law without a grasp on the why. It is okay to be overwhelmed, it is okay to look away even. It is fucking okay to realize that decades of globalization and diplomacy could not prevent this.

It is not okay to sit comfortably in a remote shack somewhere far out (or wherever you claim to live) and trivialize human suffering with badly spelled cookie-cutter platitudes.

This does make a bit more sense of the situation, especially in regards to the control of oil and water in the region, which I wasn't aware of:

I rest my case ...

Written by RaduP on 26.02.2022 at 19:37

I hope this shit won't reach us...

Written by MahoDM on 27.02.2022 at 01:13

I hope this shit won't reach us...

As I am aware Poland is accepting Ukrainian refugees and is sending in bullets. This would make Poland a target (once again) for Russia. Poland is in NATO, 20 years strong, so that fact would alter everything...

This whole shitstorm has me look back at the US/NATO response to the annexation of the Crimea in 2014. Our absolute lack of response set a terrible precedent. Now America's President is weak, our resolve is weak and our people are too busy warring with one another based upon Red or Blue (a lot like football rivalries, I suppose), Germany shut down a bunch of nuclear reactors and is importing Russian crude oil, making it, during winter, dependent upon Russia and thus weak. Most of the EU is dependent upon imports and Uncle Vlad seems the biggest dealer. Not sure what other resources "The West" have.

Beyond just this conflict, a lack of proper response from "The West" will further embolden China to go after Taiwan, and possibly Putin to do his damnedest to resurrect the Warsaw Pact.

Scary f'in times.

Studied Russian in High School (and college), had friends who were Polish and Ukrainian immigrants. They were fantastic, wonderful people.Helped me "learn" a complex language and I was happy, as much as I was a geek wallflower, to help them with American customs/culture. Had plans to visit all of these countries in 2020 - before the virus of unknown origin went Yoko Ono on all of our plans.(Gdansk and Krakow in your neck of the woods).

Hope for a quick resolution with minimal death, aside from maybe some dbag in Moskva.

And "Russian warship, go fuck yourself" is quite possibly the most bad ass line ever said given the stakes. It's not some Hollywood bullshit machismo, they knew what would happen if they went that route... and did it anyways. This needs to be in giant yellow lettering on blue shirts everywhere, immediately, with all proceeds going to help Ukrainians deal with the aftermath. This needs to happen.

Written by BitterCOld on 27.02.2022 at 02:17

As I am aware Poland is accepting Ukrainian refugees and is sending in bullets. This would make Poland a target (once again) for Russia. Poland is in NATO, 20 years strong, so that fact would alter everything...

Beyond that also most of the nato troops are here. From what I undrestood he (Putin) wants to push the nato army to Germany so Poland (and other countries close to us) will kinda be left alone for russia to form what was the soviet union once

Russia's Putin puts nuclear forces on high alert.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russias-putin-puts-nuclear-forces-high-alert-2022-02-27/

Oh, boy.

Written by Bad English on 27.02.2022 at 14:03

It never happen, see how hard he goes to Ukraine, going in Poland, whit out supline line wont be easy and half of his fighting solders are busy and when war in Ukraine be over do you think he has money?

I hope he doesn't, but the sanctions dont look like they are doing anything major

Russian forces destroyed the "biggest" and heaviest plane ever built
https://www.airlive.net/breaking-the-worlds-biggest-aircraft-antonov-an-225-mriya-has-been-destroyed-during-attack-in-ukraine/

Written by Bad English on 27.02.2022 at 18:07

Written by MahoDM on 27.02.2022 at 18:03

Written by Bad English on 27.02.2022 at 14:03

It never happen, see how hard he goes to Ukraine, going in Poland, whit out supline line wont be easy and half of his fighting solders are busy and when war in Ukraine be over do you think he has money?

I hope he doesn't, but the sanctions dont look like they are doing anything major

BTW a bit provocation, what happens if Serbia wants join in EU or NATO, Will Russia bomb them?

Euromaidan in Serbia? then yes.

Written by Bad English on 26.02.2022 at 07:36

Written by MahoDM on 26.02.2022 at 01:00

Written by Bad English on 25.02.2022 at 11:50

F1 team tock away Russian sponsor name

the f1 team haas (only american team) drops Uralkali sponsor, russian flags and maybe will fire the russian driver Mazepin

Fire driver well its not ok, unless he supports Putin agresion.

well the thing is
the sponsor (and it is their most important one) of the f1 team is led by Mazpin's father (kinda like pay-to-enter f1) so I guess it will be like killing two birds with one stone...
The father Dimitri has good relations with Putin so his son will be Probably fired anyways

The U.S. had bio laboratories in Ukraine
https://ua.usembassy.gov/embassy/kyiv/sections-offices/defense-threat-reduction-office/biological-threat-reduction-program/
while they label it as outbreak countering, the same was said about Wuhan, where "gain of function" research was done, meaning making viruses more threatening than they naturally are
with repeated plans for Nato expansion including Ukraine, Putin had to strike to prevent having a likely enemy with biological weapons capabilities right at the russian border

Written by Bad English on 27.02.2022 at 18:07

BTW a bit provocation, what happens if Serbia wants join in EU or NATO, Will Russia bomb them?

Serbia does have plans to join EU
i really hope they don"t, spending time in Serbia when i was active for Liberland i still got the sense that they had places that were outside the view of the surveillance state, something could be too remote to be watched except by neighbours
that would get lost if they let the EU can get its policies through

Written by theFIST on 28.02.2022 at 12:26

The U.S. had bio laboratories in Ukraine
https://ua.usembassy.gov/embassy/kyiv/sections-offices/defense-threat-reduction-office/biological-threat-reduction-program/
while they label it as outbreak countering, the same was said about Wuhan, where "gain of function" research was done, meaning making viruses more threatening than they naturally are
with repeated plans for Nato expansion including Ukraine, Putin had to strike to prevent having a likely enemy with biological weapons capabilities right at the russian border

So, because Ukraine - which is supposedly a sovereign country and all, mind you - decided they want to join NATO and be part of a biological threat reduction programme, "Putin had to strike"? And, by "striking", we are talking about starting a war, in which hundreds of people have already been killed and more are going to. What kind of fucked up logic is that? Proactively killing with the pretext of avoiding a "potential threat" in the future? Have we completely lost perspective of what war means and what consequences it has? Latvia and Estonia are already members of NATO, by the way, maybe Putin "has to strike" them too.

As corrupt mentioned in the shoutbox, anyone who uses generalisations for people as if they are all the same ("Russians are this", "Ukrainians are that", etc.) will get a timeout without warning. Read the original post again, please, before posting. All of you.

Written by nikarg on 28.02.2022 at 13:12

So, because Ukraine - which is supposedly a sovereign country and all, mind you - decided they want to join NATO and be part of a biological threat reduction programme, "Putin had to strike"? And, by "striking", we are talking about starting a war, in which hundreds of people have already been killed and more are going to. What kind of fucked up logic is that? Proactively killing with the pretext of avoiding a "potential threat" in the future? Have we completely lost perspective of what war means and what consequences it has? Latvia and Estonia are already members of NATO, by the way, maybe Putin "has to strike" them too.

Not saying that a war is in any way a positive, but rather that it was inevitable
this is a time at which a big part of society and economy all around the world has been shut down following a leak from another US funded bio laboratory
and following years of destabilization and proxy war in russian allied states such as Syria and plans for the same in Iran, with regular attempts at provoking outright war with Russia coming from the US foreign policy establishment of Clinton and associates, and the fortunately currently irrelevant Bush/McCain part of the republican party, this is an existential threat for Russia.
Of course it would be better not to have war, what i"m saying is that the political developments of the past decades made it inevitable for a war at Russia"s border to happen, and from the perspective of Russia it had to be before Ukraine could be a fully Nato backed rival with biological weapons capabilities.
"biological threat reduction" is a euphemism to sell it to the public, opposite its intention, just like "defense" for the general military spending

Written by theFIST on 28.02.2022 at 13:58
following a leak from another US funded bio laboratory

I'm almost certain I'm feeding a troll here, but let's consider this an experiment.

You might be interested in this study and this one. They are both pre-prints, pending peer review, but they use two different approaches to narrowing down the origin of SARS-CoV-2 and they both come to simlar conclusions. As does every other scientific investigation I have read to this date.
Unfounded claims of what you seem to call "bio laboratories" being the origin are just that: unfounded. Or, in layman's terms: bullshit.

Written by RaduP on 26.02.2022 at 19:37

This does make a bit more sense of the situation, especially in regards to the control of oil and water in the region, which I wasn't aware of:

Excellent video! Thanks for sharing!

Well, I sent some money to Ukraine through the Estonian arm of Red Cross today. I hope it helps. If any Ukrainians or anyone else knows of a better way to send help LET ME KNOW IN THE PMs PLEASE!!! I have Ukrainian friends and co-workers. I have Russian friends and co-workers. I am afraid what I don't have is any clever worlds to say on this topic. Wish I did, but I guess it wouldn't ultimately matter much anyway. All the brave Ukrainians fighting, all the refugees, you are my brothers and sisters. All Russians who oppose this illegal war in action or in their hearts, you are my brothers and sisters. I embrace you all. You are welcome in Estonia, you are welcome in my town and in my home. I fucking mean that. My house is small and I am not rich, but knock on the door and it won't be shut in your face, I swear. One day we'll all sit side-by-side, share a drink and shed a tear over the atrocities currently happening and we'll say: "Never again" and we'll mean it and we'll make it so.

I hope the site's rules will overlook this one-time of non-English, when I say: Слава Україні! And my deepest respect and admiration to all the Russian people who oppose the aggression and protest against it on the streets of Russian cities and towns. You all possess a level of courage that I can only dream of achieving.

IMPORTANT: If there are any Ukrainians in Estonia in need of a place to stay, in need of any assistance that is within my power to provide: PM me!