Condolences to the Ukrainian community

[Gistok]

Under Obama, the democratically elected pro-Russian head of Ukraine was overthrown and replaced with crooked oligarchs.

Oladub... where did you get that information from?? The Maidan revolution of 2014 did cause Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovych to flee the country. The next election, elected a Chocolate Billionaire, no more an Oligarch than Trump. Then he was voted out and replaced by the current president, a former comedian [nothing nefarious there!].

It must have slipped your mind that before he fled to Moscow, corrupt Yanukovych was plundering the Ukraine treasury by building this palatial private country palace... with its' own manicured gardens, zoo, golf course, galleon, and luxurious interiors...

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26307745

It was government corruption on a massive scale that was a contributing factor that caused the Maidan Revolution to begin with... so when you say "a fair election was overturned"... you might want to remember why!

Here... maybe this will bring you up to speed about what happened during the Maidan "bloodless" revolution...

https://carnegiemoscow.org/commentary/59172

And lets not muck up yet another thread with political crap... there's enough of that already on DYES.

[Satiricalivory]

How delusional do you guys have to be to believe the US military is somehow "weakened" or "declined"? Especially opposed to Russia... LOL What universe are you living in??

[Richard]

You have to be very concerned that Putin can just invade a country and overtake it, basically because he feels like doing it. Lately, his rantings have sounded like he is a complete lunatic. I sure as hell don't want any of our guys getting hurt over there. No matter what your feelings are about Ukraine, It's VERY concerning.

People are not looking at the bigger picture,the pipeline going through the UKRAINE carries 40% of the NAT gas to Europe,Russia already supplies the majority of wheat to the region.

If Russia takes Ukraine it controls Europe,it all ready has Germany and Italy walking on eggshells in fear that they will be cut off,without firing a shot they are already under Russias control.

They will be in control of the bulk of the food and fuel that supplies Europe,Russia is all ready referred to as Europes gas tank.

How it will effect us? Because of the world connected economy Russia then becomes a major player in the price of everything.

It was then senators Clinton and Biden that made that deal and stripped the Ukraine of their nuclear capacity,at that time it was the US,Russia and Ukraine as world nuclear powers.

They agreed that if the Ukraine gave up their nukes,Russia would not be aggressive towards the Ukraine and that the United States would always be their if they were attacked.

It was legally non binding,a handshake of sorts,who would ever trust Russia with a handshake.

He only needs to take Ukraine and the rest of Europe will be under his control.

We as a country has a history of overthrowing governments in the name of democracy,we need to be there helping the Ukraine as we promised back then we would be,if not we cannot claim we support democracy.

We could send 100,000 private contractors in there tomorrow,they are funded by DOD but not considered US soldiers and it would be no different then the Russian funded contractors that have been fighting against eastern Ukraine did the last 8 years.

Husbands are standing next to their wives armed in order to protect their homeland,if I could I would be there and as American I would be proud to stand and fight and die alongside of them

If we do not stand up for democracy when it is threatened,we do not deserve to hide under its umbrella.

Weakness draws out the evil

China is watching,Korea is watching,Korea tested 10 missiles in January alone,shortly they will have the capability to hit our shores.

The world knew,as soon as the sanctions were lifted from Nordstrom the second day in office,a war was coming,Russia did not assemble an entire invasion army in two weeks.

All this talk about sanctions now is BS ,Russians are born into hardship they do not care,to Putin this is simply eliminating the competition.

He stashed a lot of cash in preparation for this,the only sanctions that will work against him,and the only sanctions that are not on the table right now are against his fuel exports.

He knows that the United States and Europe will not sanction his number one cash crop,the fuel.

So he is also in control of us already,to a point.

He is strategically smart,he took our weakness and used them against us to gain advantage,the Ukraine citizens will pay for it with their lives today,we will in the future worse if we do not help today..

Nobody wants to die or watch others die in war,if we do not stop it there and now and fast,it will spread and at that time millions will die.

Embolden Russia,China and Korea and you have a recipe for disaster and no where to hide or run.

People say that it is a long ways away it will not effect us,it will,the feds will not raise the rates in order to curb inflation,they already said that,so figure on doubling your cost of living in the next few months when it is already at a 40 year high.

What will people say in the coming years when Korea makes demands on us where if we do not comply,he threatens to drop a nuke on Los Angles,or Huston,or Detroit?

We only have a choice between a bad situation today and an even worse situation tomorrow,we can sit this one out,but it will be more expensive in costs and lives in the future.

[Henry Whalley]

Oladub... where did you get that information from?? The Maidan revolution of 2014 did cause Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovych to flee the country...

The Netflix documentary 'Winter on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom' is about Maidan. It's very moving indeed.

[Henry Whalley]

How delusional do you guys have to be to believe the US military is somehow "weakened" or "declined"? Especially opposed to Russia... LOL What universe are you living in??

Our military is led by poltroons who haven't been successful in war with the puniest of foes. Our naval commanders are whore-mongers, or they were until Fat Leonard was incarcerated.

[Richard]

Our military is led by poltroons who haven't been successful in war with the puniest of foes. Our naval commanders are whore-mongers, or they were until Fat Leonard was incarcerated.

We are kinda at war so it becomes sketchy territory discussing operational readiness outside of what is considered public knowledge,like billion dollar warships running into other ships in port,is public knowledge.

But you cannot run a military playing second fiddle to politicians and the public,spending more time on diversity training verses weapons training does not help.

Notice how all the videos you see so far are conventional low tech weapons, keep in mind Russia backed the takeover of Armenia in order to gain control in that region,they surrendered in 11 days,because it was a drone war,the only time ground forces were brought in was to mop up resistance.

In 2 day they completely eliminated Armenian tanks and heavy artillery strictly with drones.

Russia appears to be holding back their technology in reserve in case of our response,but that region is where we would shine,we do not do good in urban warfare.

Remember our military was based and built for the last 70 years specifically for a European war,we had to adapt to play in the sand and was kinda like a bull in a China shop.

Our air wing alone,with drones,by ourselves would flatten Russian forces in a matter of days without putting troops on the ground.

The UK has a very itchy trigger finger right now also.

Russia is a formidable force,but that would be our gamble,hit them quick and hard,send the message and give Putin room to back away,if he decides not to then it becomes sticky.

Remember though,there are 27 other countries with forces also on the ground,they would like some real combat experience also.

That is the picture that Putin is looking at also,it is what is referred to as an overwhelming force.

Thats two cards we are not playing for some reason,it’s almost like this is for show,those videos of the helicopters flying around the captured air base,they could have been taken out with a simple sniper rifle or any WW2 shoulder fired rocket,and they do not have any markings on them,which is against the Geneva convention.

It just seems really really strange,almost like it was staged.

We and everybody else has a force sitting there that can annihilate him in days,the one thing he is banking on,support from the US citizenry to keep the politicians from going to war,that is his ace card,without it he would not stand a chance against us and 27 other countries.

I think we should call his buff,he is not stupid,he knows we could wipe him out.

He would have never done this,if he thought he would have never been allowed to.

The Ukraine is an independent democratic controlled country that is under attack with no provocation,we have every justification to go in there and help them.

We did it in Panama,Iran,Iraq,Afghanistan,8 different nations in Africa,at least 3 in Latin America.

But we are scared to when it comes to the most strategic one in Europe is attacked,why?

[Scottathew]

Not committing the US military to a ground war in defense of Ukraine or Taiwan does not make America weak in the slightest....

100% agree with everything you said.

If we send in our ground troops, that is the start of WWIII and the end of the world as we know it today. It's simply not an option. All the people of the world that oppose Russia need to put in very strong sanctions, cut ties economically, etc...

Zacha341 mentioned we need to secure more oil, I disagree. Let's go post-oil. The people we buy oil from aren't our friends. We have the technology we need. Start taxing oil and use the money raised to get us the hell off of it. That will put market pressure for people to get off oil while at the same time putting the muscle of the US government into accelerating the other options.

It would be nice if ALL former presidents would condemn Putin's move here. But Trump still offers praise and support for Putin, even as he invades our ally that Trump tried to shake down during his presidency.

The best-case scenario would be that the invasion mostly fails, little territory is gained, Russia feels the immense pain of most of the world cutting economic ties, and a weaker Russia wanting political change emerges.

These coming days are very important to world history. My thoughts and best wishes are with the Ukrainian people.

[canuck]

Richard/Dr Strangelove/Foghorn Leghorn
To answer your last question: Nothing to worry about.

or… does it matter that Putin’s itchy fingers can inflict more damage than Boris Johnsonov’s.

With your military background and street smarts, why don’t you just find your way to Kiev and lend the Ukrainians a hand. You’re closer to your final outcome than when you were in the forces, and seem to relish the challenge.

In the spirit of your last question:
What's to stop you?