President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman informed Russians this week that the “special military operation” that Putin launched in Ukraine in February 2022 was set to go on much longer because it is now “a war against the collective West.”
That’s right: a war.
It was remarkable to hear that word from Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov. Journalists were explicitly banned from using it as the invasion began and thousands of Russians have been detained, fined and imprisoned for telling the truth about a war which has now been raging for almost two years.
“Moscow deputy Aleksey Gorinov was sentenced to seven years in prison for saying ‘war,’” Sergey Davidis, head of the Political Prisoners Support group, told The Daily Beast. He said over 20,000 Russians have now been detained and punished for protesting against the war. “That includes 131 Russians who have been sentenced to long prison terms in punishment for peaceful or for more radical anti-war actions,” he said. “I don’t think punishments against the war will now be milder after the Kremlin openly says ‘war.’ Putin will be next to declare it.”
They are not wrong, Russia is practically at war with the entire west. They are support Ukraine and pour weapons in there like no tomorrow.
If Russia can keep this up and “outlast” and then conquer East-Ukraine they get the valuable part of the country, the breadbasket and industry. And I doubt think the military will stop supporting Putin during this war.
It also weakens democracy Europe because of refugees, massive spending and increase of austerity. This is part of their geopolitcal strategy, the more fascism in Europe, the less unified the EU is.
And for US / NATO it creates an more streamlined front even with just West-Ukraine. Even if individual countries in the EU become more nationalist and leave the EU, they won’t leave NATO with Russia looming. You can also read appreciation for a more militaristic and hawkish attitudes in European countries.
So for the future wars to come with climate change this is an acceptable outcome for those in power. Only the people in Ukraine, Russia and the taxpayers loose.
I do wonder how there could be anything of value remaining in areas that have been shelled or mined
Good question. Maybe it’s easier to rebuild industry even if partially destroyed. But I think it’s mostly about natural resources (search).
I think the original plan was to get all of Ukraine into the duty free zone of the EU which would have made trade mostly exclusive with EU instead of exclusive with Russia.
Huh, the feeling when in Stellaris, the united nations of earth have some massive wars before unification. Did the devs somehow see the future? Omg
We know that with food and certain areas becoming precarious due to climate change, wars and genocides are kind of inevitable. Syria was partially caused by an extremely rare drought causing people to move into the cities. You could argue that Ukraine was caused by Russia and the EU trying to lay their hands on the Ukrainian breadbasket. So it’s possible that this is the beginning of the “climate wars”. While that is speculation and it’s certainly not framed that way, it certainly does reinforce the sides for the future. Putin / Russia knows it too and they have a many borders with countries that will be in turmoil due to climate change.
Well at least things will be epic by the start of 2200.