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Russia vs NATO

Just posting this today. It’s a leaked letter from an internal FSB agent about the war. It’s a very, very interesting read

apple.news

This war will be a total failure, Russian whistleblower says — The Times and The Sunday Times

Spies in Russia’s infamous security apparatus were kept in the dark about President Putin’s plan to invade Ukraine, according to a whistleblower who described the war as a “total failure” that could be compared only to the collapse of Nazi Germany. A report thought to be by an analyst in the...
apple.news apple.news

Or if you can’t access apple news try this:

www.thetimes.co.uk

This war will be a total failure, FSB whistleblower says

Spies in Russia’s infamous security apparatus were kept in the dark about President Putin’s plan to invade Ukraine, according to a whistleblower who described
www.thetimes.co.uk www.thetimes.co.uk

General messages from the text :

1. No one knew what Putin was doing
2. No one expected the severity of the sanctions
3. They were trying to get dirt to suggest Ukraine was building nuclear weapons to justify a first strike
4. They are extremely worried about how this will play out and suggest the Russian economy will collapse in June.
5. The Chechen leader is ready to start a war with Russia due to him loosing all hot “hit squad” that went in last week to help
6. The writer mentions their concern that if the west does not lift sanctions Russia will give an ultimatum then possibly declare war on the west (the writer compares the situation to Hitler at the start of World War Two)
7. Russia central command have lost communications with their units (maybe why the convoy hasn’t moved in days) and expect their war dead to have exceeded 10,000 by now
8. The mood is Moscow is very low with acceptance they will not win this war and are looking for a way out. The writer compared it to the collapse of nazi Germany.


Also worth mentioning, hacking group Anonymous hacked into Russian state tv last night and played footage from the war including captured soldiers statements to the watchers. There is footage of tv being interrupted to show these clips on Twitter. Apparently nearly all channels were affected

 
BarryZola said:
I think it was Lord Dannatt a couple of days ago that said something like 'Putin has been gambling so far during this war, and at almost every step of rolling the dice he's been getting 1's instead of 6's'.
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Yeah I saw that. He also went on to say that like a poker play he may end up just going all in!
 
This is very interesting today on sky news from the Kremlin. Looks like Putin is looking for a way out and to save face knowing he has made a mistake in Ukraine. The west needs to give him an off ramp. I hope cool heads prevail and people start talking to each other as this will be the best outcome and possibly the quickest for the people in Ukraine:

Russia and US could return to Cold War 'peaceful co-existence', says Russia​

The Russian foreign ministry has said it is open to honest and mutually respectful dialogue with the US, according to Russian news agency Interfax.
In a message to America, it said the two countries should return to the principle of "peaceful co-existence" like during the Cold War.
It also said hope remained that normal relations between the two countries could be restored.
The US has imposed some of the harshest sanctions on Russia following the war in Ukraine.
 
Today Russia admitted it had used conscripts in the invasion. Putin yesterday said they hadn’t. Apparently the conscripts went there themselves!

Russia also admitted to using thermobaric weapons in Ukraine, second only to nuclear in terms of their destructive power.

And now it would appear Russia is gearing up for a false flag chemical weapons attack possibly on Kiev. All day the news has been full of Russia accusing the US and Ukraine of having bio labs (which they do). , and this news tonight would suggest if an attack took place they would be blaming it on the Ukraine “nationalists”. Russia did the same in Syria. Please will someone take Putin out very soon!

'Chemical weapons' provocation being plotted in Ukraine - Russian Defense Ministry

interfax.com interfax.com
 
This is really concerning; 4 serving British soldiers have gone AWOl to Ukraine even though serving personnel are banned from doing so. There are fears that Russia could say that we have entered the war if even one of them is captured. One is just 19! 😳

www.bbc.co.uk

War in Ukraine: UK soldier AWOL amid fears he is heading to Ukraine

The 19-year-old left his Windsor barracks at the weekend, an Army source confirms to the BBC.
www.bbc.co.uk
 
Skyscraper said:
This is really concerning; 4 serving British soldiers have gone AWOl to Ukraine even though serving personnel are banned from doing so. There are fears that Russia could say that we have entered the war if even one of them is captured. One is just 19! 😳

www.bbc.co.uk

War in Ukraine: UK soldier AWOL amid fears he is heading to Ukraine

The 19-year-old left his Windsor barracks at the weekend, an Army source confirms to the BBC.
www.bbc.co.uk
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UK and US special forces are almost certainly already operating in Ukraine anyway, this could be “cover” in case one gets uncovered.

I’m of the opinion now that the west will get involved sooner or later anyway, Putin is clearly gone mad and if someone doesn’t take him out soon he will do something stupid and leave the west with little choice.
 
Knowing the way Putin is running the false narrative on Russian state media he could say there's NATO troops on the ground in Ukraine anyway. He doesn't need to actually capture a British troop to make that claim.
 
His next move will be a chemical attack which he will blame on ukraine. This gives him justification to the Russian people for his “special operation”. I pray for the sake of those innocent people I am wrong, but this is the person who has done it in the past in Syria and who must now win whatever the cost.
 
The West need to draw a line in the sand, any use of chemical or nuclear weapons will bring us into the conflict.
Putin only understands one language and that’s violence, we need to ratchet it up and if it ends up in WW3 then so be it, Russia hasn’t exactly shown much to be frightened of yet.
We need to stop being weak.
 
I’m not sure WW3 is necessarily a given by any stretch. I’d sincerely hope that war is a last resort in the eyes of world leaders, and besides, all of the NATO leaders have categorically ruled out any kind of armed conflict with Russia. No one wants a war, and I’m sure that the world’s leaders and the Kremlin will exhaust many, many other options before WW3 is even on the table. As much as it seems like a lot has already been attempted, I think there are still a surprising amount of options in the arsenal from a diplomatic standpoint before we even think about military retaliation.

War, particularly nuclear war like is commonly being discussed, benefits nobody. Not even Russia. With nuclear war in particular, I heard the analogy of “the only winning move is simply not playing”, which I personally think is a very good one. That could extend to war more generally; nobody benefits from it.
 
Matt N said:
I’m not sure WW3 is necessarily a given by any stretch. I’d sincerely hope that war is a last resort in the eyes of world leaders, and besides, all of the NATO leaders have categorically ruled out any kind of armed conflict with Russia. No one wants a war, and I’m sure that the world’s leaders and the Kremlin will exhaust many, many other options before WW3 is even on the table. As much as it seems like a lot has already been attempted, I think there are still a surprising amount of options in the arsenal from a diplomatic standpoint before we even think about military retaliation.

War, particularly nuclear war like is commonly being discussed, benefits nobody. Not even Russia. With nuclear war in particular, I heard the analogy of “the only winning move is simply not playing”, which I personally think is a very good one. That could extend to war more generally; nobody benefits from it.
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As much as I agree Matt, Ww2 literally started after the uk PM ruled out armed conflict unless Germany attacked Poland, which is basically the equlivient to Russia attacking any NATO country. Do I think it’s likely? No, I know Putin is stupid but he’s not that stupid, attacking a NATO country is a death wish for his regime. Comparing Russia’s military and the combined force of NATO is ridiculous. NATO has the full force of the US and some regional powers like the UK And France. You’ve also got all the smaller armies in Europe combined. He just couldn’t take that risk and he knows it, hence why he threatens nuclear war to try and get what he wants rather than just invading NATO.
 
I see four ways this could go in order of probability:

1. Putin launches chemical or nuclear attack on Ukraine killing thousands - NATO says enough is enough and intervenes
2. NATO gives in and provides a no fly zone
3. A stray missile lands in a NATO country and kills people dragging NATO in
4. Putin attacks Poland in particular the supply line where Ukraine are getting all their weapons from us

Interestingly the US has put 2x Patriot systems for shooting down missiles in Poland today probably for reasons 3 and 4 above. He has also put US missile intercepting warships on patrol in the Baltic Sea.
 
GaryH said:
I see four ways this could go in order of probability:

1. Putin launches chemical or nuclear attack on Ukraine killing thousands - NATO says enough is enough and intervenes
2. NATO gives in and provides a no fly zone
3. A stray missile lands in a NATO country and kills people dragging NATO in
4. Putin attacks Poland in particular the supply line where Ukraine are getting all their weapons from us

Interestingly the US has put 2x Patriot systems for shooting down missiles in Poland today probably for reasons 3 and 4 above. He has also put US missile intercepting warships on patrol in the Baltic Sea.
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Am I right in saying that you think a NATO war is a nailed on possibility at this point? That there’s no avoiding an armed conflict between Russia and NATO?

God, that scares me…
 
Honestly speaking and from all the experts are saying….. as each day goes by we are getting closer and closer to a face off with Russia, and if it’s not now it will be in the future unless Putin is removed and a more moderate leader put in his place.
 
I don’t think Putin wants a war with NATO as even he knows he has no chance of winning even with China. (Who are likely to remain neutral tbh)
Problem is he has marched his men up the hill and is too arrogant to march them down again, Ukraine has also made them look silly so he is a wounded bear and starting to lash out.
Hopefully the poison dart hits before we have to use the gun to finish him off.
 
I did just think of one key difference (aside from the big one of nuclear weapons) that any potential WW3 would have compared to WW2, and that’s alliances. And I dare say that this factor could possibly dissuade Russia from pursuing a larger-scale conflict.

I know people often compare Vladimir Putin to Adolf Hitler, but one key difference that Hitler had that Putin doesn’t was that he (seemingly) had far more notable allies than Putin does at present, which made the conflict a bit more two-sided.

For starters, Hitler had the Axis alliance with Italy and Japan, two significant world powers, and I believe Austria-Hungary was also on the side of Germany as well. The Allies, on the other hand, consisted only of Britain, France, the USA and the USSR (and to a lesser extent China). So the two sides were fairly level.

However, things are very different at present, from what I can gather. In terms of “major powers”, it’s looking like this really would be “Russia vs the rest of the world” if it came to anything major. As far as I can tell, Russia doesn’t really have any notable allies. Yes, you could cite China, but China has not really thrown its weight behind Russia at all thus far, and I even saw that they pledged some aid to Ukraine, which tells me that they would not necessarily have Russia’s back in a world war. The other side, on the other hand, has NATO, an absolutely huge alliance encompassing many countries. Yes, some of them are smaller and less major powers than others, but there is still a lot more combined weight behind NATO than there was behind the Allies in WW2 (practically the entirety of the West is in NATO, for all intents and purposes, other than the countries that typically remain neutral in conflicts), and there are other countries not inside NATO that have publicly denounced Russia and would likely be on NATO’s side in the event of a war.

Correct me if I’m wrong here, but I don’t think any major power has unequivocally backed Russia thus far. Some have remained neutral, but no one has thrown their full weight behind Russia.

I could be wrong there, and please correct me if I am, but my WW2 knowledge from Year 9 History and a spot of internet research tells me that Hitler in 1939 was far less isolated than Putin is in 2022. As such, that might function as a red flag to prevent Putin from pursuing any larger conflict.
 
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