Vladimir Putin has officially declared war on Ukraine

When I lived in Russia, I became friends with a girl that lives in the apartment next to us. I still follow/keep in touch with her. On her instagram tonight she is praising Putin and saying the west is blowing this out of context. That its not 'really a war' and they are only taking back what is theirs. 

Makes me sick. She is normally a pretty level headed woman but in the last month or so I have seen a real shift in her thinking and what she believes is happening. Its scary.

I've seen some postulate that Putin likens himself to the Romanovs and this is not just about the USSR, but the whole Russian Empire.  Given his speech on Monday, including Finland as part of the Russian family in his rant against Lenin, and these actions we have to consider that his grand vision goes beyond the USSR, but into Eastern Europe.  If he is willing to risk WWIII, which is what involvement in NATO countries (the Baltics, Poland, Romania) risks, he's essentially putting his chips "all-in" which if he has misplayed this, it will lead to the end of him.

I had wrongly assumed that he was more tactical and pragmatic than he appears to be now.  He would go for smaller incursions in more pro-Russian areas, that he thought the West would let him get away with, as economics and cost/benefit analysis would triumph over idealistic ideas over sovereignty.  A more systematic test of Western resolve.  We'll learn over the next few days how far the West will turn the economic screws on the Russian oligarchs who have gotten accustomed to the comforts of Western society that Putin believes is destroying the Russian way of life.  Putin can't fund his grand vision on his own.

Which scares the shit out of me.

My son is navy too and I have no ability to contact him now. I'll be thinking of you and all our military

Disgusting....




www.rawstory.com/trump-ukraine-2656780321/

Thinking of you and your boys!! Actually young men!

Oh that is horrible. I hope they are ok. So many innocent people are stuck in the middle of this. 

I think of the men and women in the armed forces and all those in the ukrainian military and those civilian forces who are called up to fight.

I think that Russian people have unrestricted access to the internet and foreign news. DH and I spent almost 3 weeks in Russia in 2019 and we certainly didn’t see anything to suggest otherwise.  We spent time in Moscow, St Petersburg, and also a river cruise between the 2 cities, which included time every day in small towns where we often met and chatted with locals (well, those who spoke English of course!). While we were mostly with the cruise people for the length of the cruise, we were by ourselves in Moscow and St Petersburg with no restrictions at all, and didn’t see any sign of the locals having any sort of restrictions either.

ETA:  I’ve just done a bit of googling and it seems the Russian government does indeed censor some URLs but (so far) it seems to focus on social media rather than news sites.  Here’s a couple of websites:

Russia is escalating it campaign to control the internet (April 2021]

Wikipedia 

Yep.

As for your friend, Russian propaganda is pretty effective, as we’ve seen with Covid - they’re absolute masters at it.

Ukraine is a sovereign nation. It’s no more theirs, than Latvia or Lithuania are. I follow one Russian YouTuber, I’m really interested in her take on this, if she has one. She seems to have unfettered access to Vlog, but she rarely talks about the current government.

Personally they need to sanction Belarus too, they’ve clearly made their choice, and thrown their lot in.

How long did you live in Russia and where?

I was able to IM with a Ukrainian team member in Kyiv. They are OK. No sleep for the past two days, very stressed. I can’t imagine how scared they are. Its just unbelievable that they have to deal with this.

I feel for all of you with enlisted family members and hope they remain safe.

My grandparents fled Ukraine during WWII. Like many their story was horrific. We always thought my grandmother was being a bit dramatic when she swore to never return for a visit, even though she really wanted to see her childhood town and family who stayed behind. She’s totally saying “I told you so now”.

Wow, ceased trading on the Moscow stock market? He had to know something like that was coming, right?

I've just been listening to BBC news. Most assuredly Ukraine has a plan. The former ambassador was on and he said they are prepared to fight to the death. The only problem is that as strong as the Ukraine military is (and it is MUCH stronger than it was in 2014 when Russia tried this before) they simply cannot compete in numbers or in military equipment. These people don't have a chance if the world doesn't help. 

It will be interesting in the next few days to see how many hawks and how many doves we have in this country now. Very interesting.

Another thing that was said in the news broadcast is that we Americans will most definitely be affected in major ways. We can expect cyber warfare if nothing else. Apparently our banks and other financial institutions have quietly been preparing. 

This is going to be very ugly unless of course the world sits back and lets Putin do as he pleases. 

It’s a trip watching the Russians on Twitter.

It is however an equally ugly trip watching Americans on there justify this.