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Ukraine's Poroshenko Says Russia Amassing Forces Along Border

Rogue Valley

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Ukraine's Poroshenko Says Russia Amassing Forces Along Border

103931_src.jpg

Russian armor is massing about 17 miles from the Ukraine border.

12/1/18
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has said that Russia is amassing ground forces and weaponry along the border between the two countries. Speaking at a military event in Kyiv on December 1, Poroshenko said Russia has deployed "more than 80,000 troops, 1,400 artillery and multiple-rocket-launch systems, 900 tanks, 2,300 armored combat vehicles, 500 airplanes, and 300 helicopters" near the border. He also said Russia had 80 ships and eight submarines in the Aegean Sea, the Black Sea, and the Sea of Azov. The alleged buildup comes in the wake of a November 25 incident in which Russia seized three Ukrainian naval vessels and detained 24 Ukrainian sailors near the Kerch Strait. "The Kremlin is further testing the strength of the global order," Poroshenko said, adding that Moscow wants to see if the international community will allow Russia to claim the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov as its territorial waters.

Putin would love to carve-out a land-corridor through southeastern Ukraine to Russia-occupied-Crimea.
 
Presumably Russia should have to obtain permission from the 'international community' before moving its forces within its own. borders?

That would work 🙄.

Wake me up when Russia does 'invade' Ukraine, although I've been told for 4 years that it already has.

Still, I'm accustomed to the schizophrenic analysis which comes out of the West.

Presumably, 'Nigeria with Snow' is no threat to anyone in any case....... so no worry (least of all brave Lithuania which is so keen to fight Russia with everybody's else's people).
 
I have very mixed feelings here. I hate to see someone like Putin given free reign to take whatever land he sees fit. However, Eastern Ukraine is populated by Russians. That was only part of Ukraine because of the Soviets. Notwithstanding is the fact that from the dawn of a Russian state up until 1992, Ukraine had always been part of Russia, so much so that the first capital of Russia was Kiev. The idea of a Ukranian state is less than 30 years old. It had been Russian for over 1000 years. Should we risk World War III over maintaining a 30 year idea?
 
Is Ukraine able to mount any sort of defense or are they doomed if Russia moves in?

Ukraine has the second largest standing military in Europe (250,000 active / 1 million in reserve) behind Russia. Due to geographical proximity however, Russian armor could be in Kyiv in less than a week.

Without resorting to nuclear weapons, every Western nation on the European continent would find itself hard pressed against Kremlin's forces.

Their salvation would be (1) Russia has lousy military supply logistics (2) US reinforcements and true power projection.
 
I have very mixed feelings here. I hate to see someone like Putin given free reign to take whatever land he sees fit. However, Eastern Ukraine is populated by Russians. That was only part of Ukraine because of the Soviets. Notwithstanding is the fact that from the dawn of a Russian state up until 1992, Ukraine had always been part of Russia, so much so that the first capital of Russia was Kiev. The idea of a Ukranian state is less than 30 years old. It had been Russian for over 1000 years. Should we risk World War III over maintaining a 30 year idea?

Your history here is .... way off. Kyiv existed before there even was any Russia.

Edit. In addition, nowhere in this thread was it even suggested that the West come to Ukraine's aid militarily.
 
Ukraine has the second largest standing military in Europe (250,000 active / 1 million in reserve) behind Russia. Due to geographical proximity however, Russian armor could be in Kyiv in less than a week.

Without resorting to nuclear weapons, every Western nation on the European continent would find itself hard pressed against Kremlin's forces.

Their salvation would be (1) Russia has lousy military supply logistics (2) US reinforcements and true power projection.

Rogue Valley:

I would be very wary of anything that either Putin or Poroshenko says publicly. That being said, Mr. Putin may be calculating that the conditions are right at this time to launch a second strike now rather than later. His thinking may be that the present US commander in chief might be very, very loathe to intervene in a second phase of the Russian dismemberment of Ukraine. That window of opportunity could close very soon or maybe at most in two years, so from Putin's perspective the time might be right to move again against Kiev/Kyiv. What's more is that if the US President moves against Mr. Putin's aggression then the Russian leadership can torpedo the sitting US President with compromising information which throws America into a distracting constitutional crisis and if the US President doesn't intervene then Russia gets what it wants while America tears itself apart politically anyway.

If Mr. Putin moves openly against Ukraine with military force again, don't expect him to stop in the Donbas. I think Russian forces will drive through Southern Ukraine, past Odessa and on to the frontier with Moldova. This will cut Ukraine off from the Black Sea and frighten Moldova into compliance with Kremlin policy. What will be left is a rump Ukraine which can be ravaged by air and long-range artillery/rocketry attack to keep it in a weakened and impotent state indefinitely.

Cheers?
Evilroddy.
 
Presumably Russia should have to obtain permission from the 'international community' before moving its forces within its own. borders?

That would work ��.

Wake me up when Russia does 'invade' Ukraine, although I've been told for 4 years that it already has.

Still, I'm accustomed to the schizophrenic analysis which comes out of the West.

Presumably, 'Nigeria with Snow' is no threat to anyone in any case....... so no worry (least of all brave Lithuania which is so keen to fight Russia with everybody's else's people).

Invasion already done.... Crimea and the disputed territories...

But you already knew that and are playing dumb.
 
Poroshenko has warned of impending Russian invasions countless tines before. He cries wolf repeatedly in a desperate attempt to drag Europe and possibly the world into a war which could end civilisation. He has been wrong many times before. He lies because he's a desperate oligarch facing an election he can't win.

Luckily he has the likes of RV and the CIA on his side who also have a motive to talk up war. The only thing is that Poroshenko hasn't realised that the US will get off the bus as soon as the shooting starts.

One other question - we have threads here where we're told that Russia has already invaded and occupies Ukraine.

Now we have Poro warning of impending invasion.

Go figure - it's the lie that just keeps on giving :roll:
 
Rogue Valley:

I would be very wary of anything that either Putin or Poroshenko says publicly. That being said, Mr. Putin may be calculating that the conditions are right at this time to launch a second strike now rather than later. His thinking may be that the present US commander in chief might be very, very loathe to intervene in a second phase of the Russian dismemberment of Ukraine. That window of opportunity could close very soon or maybe at most in two years, so from Putin's perspective the time might be right to move again against Kiev/Kyiv. What's more is that if the US President moves against Mr. Putin's aggression then the Russian leadership can torpedo the sitting US President with compromising information which throws America into a distracting constitutional crisis and if the US President doesn't intervene then Russia gets what it wants while America tears itself apart politically anyway.

If Mr. Putin moves openly against Ukraine with military force again, don't expect him to stop in the Donbas. I think Russian forces will drive through Southern Ukraine, past Odessa and on to the frontier with Moldova. This will cut Ukraine off from the Black Sea and frighten Moldova into compliance with Kremlin policy. What will be left is a rump Ukraine which can be ravaged by air and long-range artillery/rocketry attack to keep it in a weakened and impotent state indefinitely.

Cheers?
Evilroddy.


You under-estimate the Russian military.

The US can't stop an invasion, and it could only try to reverse it through risking global nuclear war.

Everybody in both elites knows the US won't send its forces to die for Ukraine, and the Europeans won't permit the US to stage the necessary combined arms build up to fight a horrific war on Europe's soil.
 
Your history here is .... way off. Kyiv existed before there even was any Russia.

Edit. In addition, nowhere in this thread was it even suggested that the West come to Ukraine's aid militarily.

Kiev existed, but it was the capital of the earliest Russian state, and that wasn't because Ukraine controlled Russia.

There was no Ukrainian state until 1992. Prior to that, it was part of Russia for over 1000 years, so the idea of Ukraine being separate from Russia is very recent.

As far as Western intervention, I think it's implied in the existence of the thread that Putin should be stopped. I'm certainly no fan of Putin, but I wouldn't risk war over a state that's only existed for 30 years and has no stability in maintaining a democracy.
 

Army Chief of Staff Gen. Milley Tells Putin: "We will beat you. We will beat you harder than you've ever been beaten before."
 
The US can't stop an invasion, and it could only try to reverse it through risking global nuclear war.

Correct. The above is the calculus used by Putin/Russia in regards to Europe generally and Ukraine/Georgia specifically.

In short, Putin appreciates that forcibly resisting his nuclear-power-bully-regime is a zero-sum game and he uses the Kremlin's nuclear-arsenal as his threatening Swiss-Army-Knife.

It would be similar to the US invading Cuba and also threatening nuclear Armageddon to anyone interfering. This is the tactic that Putin uses exhaustively.
 
Rogue Valley:

I would be very wary of anything that either Putin or Poroshenko says publicly. That being said, Mr. Putin may be calculating that the conditions are right at this time to launch a second strike now rather than later. His thinking may be that the present US commander in chief might be very, very loathe to intervene in a second phase of the Russian dismemberment of Ukraine. That window of opportunity could close very soon or maybe at most in two years, so from Putin's perspective the time might be right to move again against Kiev/Kyiv. What's more is that if the US President moves against Mr. Putin's aggression then the Russian leadership can torpedo the sitting US President with compromising information which throws America into a distracting constitutional crisis and if the US President doesn't intervene then Russia gets what it wants while America tears itself apart politically anyway.

If Mr. Putin moves openly against Ukraine with military force again, don't expect him to stop in the Donbas. I think Russian forces will drive through Southern Ukraine, past Odessa and on to the frontier with Moldova. This will cut Ukraine off from the Black Sea and frighten Moldova into compliance with Kremlin policy. What will be left is a rump Ukraine which can be ravaged by air and long-range artillery/rocketry attack to keep it in a weakened and impotent state indefinitely.

Neither Poroshenko nor Putin is above manipulations, but Poroshenko has far more to lose for miscalculations. Besides that common sense, there are Western diplomatic and military personnel in-country, and also international monitors from the OSCE.

More worrying than Mr. Poroshenko are Trump and Merkel. Neither seems able to see the danger that grows by the day. I'll put it succinctly ..... Russia has been preparing for [a major] war for many years now.

Addressing the bulk of your post ... Putin's popularity is flagging at home. He needs a boost, and a reprise of the 2014 Crimea Anschluss could provide one. Way back in spring/summer 2014 I predicted a Russian "thunder-run" to Odesa. This would (1) Reincarnate the "Novorossiya" (New Russia) southern regions of Ukraine that Potemkin administered for Russia under Catherine the Great (2) Create a land bridge from Russia proper to occupied Crimea and occupied Moldova (Transnistria) (3) Effectively make rump Ukraine a landlocked nation (4) Create a huge Russian proxy front in southern Ukraine that directly threatens independent Moldova and NATO nations Romania, Bulgaria, and Turkey. (5) Make the entire Black Sea a Russian A2D2 area. (6) Allow Russia to lay claim to (steal) Ukraine's legal EEZ (Economic Zone) rights in the Black Sea such as fishing, and oil/gas fields under the seabed.

For those of you not familiar with these concepts, the image below is illustrative. The pink area labeled "Новороссия" (New Russia) is the ultimate Kremlin goal in Ukraine.

The green area labeled "Украина" (Ukraine) would be the remaining landlocked rump country of Ukraine.

344b27bc90b2.jpg
 
Kiev existed, but it was the capital of the earliest Russian state, and that wasn't because Ukraine controlled Russia.

There was no Ukrainian state until 1992. Prior to that, it was part of Russia for over 1000 years, so the idea of Ukraine being separate from Russia is very recent.

As far as Western intervention, I think it's implied in the existence of the thread that Putin should be stopped. I'm certainly no fan of Putin, but I wouldn't risk war over a state that's only existed for 30 years and has no stability in maintaining a democracy.

where and when you got this book ? in Moscow in 1947? Muscovy (Mongolian ulus juchi) has had nothing to do with ancient Kiev rus´



Timothy Snyder, Chicago, USA, 9 November 2014.
 
where and when you got this book ? in Moscow in 1947? Muscovy (Mongolian ulus juchi) has had nothing to do with ancient Kiev rus´



Timothy Snyder, Chicago, USA, 9 November 2014.


Right. The "Rus" has nothing to do with Russia. Talk about revisionist history.

Rurik ruled from Kiev. Rurik was the first "czar" (though he didn't hold the title). All rulers of Russia were descended from Rurik until Feodor I. There was no Ukrainian State until the 1990s.
 
Kiev existed, but it was the capital of the earliest Russian state, and that wasn't because Ukraine controlled Russia.

There was no Ukrainian state until 1992. Prior to that, it was part of Russia for over 1000 years, so the idea of Ukraine being separate from Russia is very recent.

As far as Western intervention, I think it's implied in the existence of the thread that Putin should be stopped. I'm certainly no fan of Putin, but I wouldn't risk war over a state that's only existed for 30 years and has no stability in maintaining a democracy.

Technichally ukraine had a state for less than a year in 1917, besides that ukraine has not in it's whole been a part of russia for 1000 years, it was part of rus, as was todays belarus ukraine and russia, but russia then was known as vladamir and only extended north to moscow by the later part of the rus empire. Ukraine got conquered by mongolians as did the rest of rus while vladamir ended up being controlled by them and becoming a vassal state. since that time ukraine has been divided between russia poland lithuania and during ww2 germany, ukraine had never been under it's present borders a single state until the soviet union..


Ukraine though for a long time has been called ukraine even though it was divided between different nations, the actual origin is completely unknown of the name but the most common belief is that ukraine means borderlands in russian deriving from proto slavic ukraina, so through history ukraine has had it;s own ethnic identity no matter who ran the country.
 
where and when you got this book ? in Moscow in 1947? Muscovy (Mongolian ulus juchi) has had nothing to do with ancient Kiev rus´



Timothy Snyder, Chicago, USA, 9 November 2014.


It has already been pointed out to you before yes it did, vladamir was a state of rus which now covers western parts of russia and the western part is descended from rus. You can try and make up history all you want but nearly everything you post on slavic history can be debunked in a 3 second google search.
 
It has already been pointed out to you before yes it did, vladamir was a state of rus which now covers western parts of russia and the western part is descended from rus. You can try and make up history all you want but nearly everything you post on slavic history can be debunked in a 3 second google search.

which parts Belarusian Smalensk , Novgorod Republic ? which your Mongol Muscovy Khanate has conquered there lands only in 16 -17 c? killing all elites in NR case and deported or kill 100 % Belarusians from Smalensk city . how can you hate Europe civilization so much , in the same time dont want to except yourselves as you are ? the Asiatic nation ?
 
Right. The "Rus" has nothing to do with Russia. Talk about revisionist history.

Rurik ruled from Kiev. Rurik was the first "czar" (though he didn't hold the title). All rulers of Russia were descended from Rurik until Feodor I. There was no Ukrainian State until the 1990s.

no he was not , non of Grand Princes (kniaz´) could rule as an absolute Mongolian ruler (czar) . what did your Finnish moksha when the Grand Princes rules half of europe from Kiev ?)
 
Right. The "Rus" has nothing to do with Russia. Talk about revisionist history.

The Kievan Rus Empire was founded with a confederation of The Varangians (Vikings) and Eastern Slavic tribes. The empire was centered in what is modern day Ukraine.

Rurik ruled from Kiev. Rurik was the first "czar" (though he didn't hold the title). All rulers of Russia were descended from Rurik until Feodor I. There was no Ukrainian State until the 1990s.

Ukraine has been [an annexed] part of various empires ... Mongols, Golden Horde, Ottoman, Poland, Lithuania, Austro-Hungarian USSR. During these periods, it was obvious that Ukraine had its own culture, folk lore, language, culinary, etc. Ukraine was never considered an intrinsic part of Czarist Russia, nor of Soviet Russia (which is why the country was officially the Ukrainian SSR).

Whatever its complex past, Ukraine became a wholly independent and sovereign nation in December 1991 via the exact same mechanisms (Alma Ata Protocol / Belavezha Accords) in which the new Russian Federation became a wholly independent and sovereign nation. If Ukraine is not viable, then neither is the Russian Federation. The exact same documents created both new nations.

inline-signing.jpg

Left to right. The presidents of Ukraine, Belarus, and the Russian Federation (Yeltsin) signing the Belavezha Accords at the Belovezhskaya Pushcha
National Park, Belarus on 8 December 1991.
 
RV - you are woefully perverse in arguing that Putin needs an electoral boost. Why does he? He's in his final term and is still very popular by western standards. It is of course your man Poroshenko who if facing re-election, it desperately unpopular, and sees blaming Russia for all Ukraine's ills as his only real hope.

Where RV is correct is in pointing out that Russia has been preparing for a major war for years. This is a war against the US, a war which might involve a catastrophic nuclear exchange. It's a war that Russia thinks it can survive better than the US.

But to be sure, Russia wants peace. But much analysis indicates that the US is itself planning a war with Russia. The ailing hegemon is unable to adapt to a multi-polar world. It's a last throw if the dice for Western old world elites. Russia's systematic demonisation is part of preparing US and especially European citizens for a major war which they may not survive.

So Russia prepares too. It has to. Some of this is open source, other parts of it are highly secret.

But the West has only itself to blame for treading down a path that only the insane should want to tread.
 
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