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Invasion of Ukraine Continues As Russia Begins Nuclear Weapons Sabre Rattling
cold fjord writes Russian President has issued a stark indication of Russia's military capabilities: "I want to remind you that Russia is one of the most powerful nuclear nations. This is a reality, not just words." According to News.com.au, "It's the first time in more than 25 years that Moscow has raised the spectre of nuclear war. The difference this time is that its tanks are already pouring over its western borders." To put numbers behind that, "Russia has moved 4,000 to 5,000 military personnel — a figure far higher than one U.S. official's earlier claim of 1,000 troops. The soldiers are aligned in 'formed units' and fighting around Luhansk and Donetsk.... And they may soon have company: Some 20,000 troops are on border and 'more may be on the way.'" On top of that, the Ukraine Defence Minister claims Russia has made threats that they're prepared to use tactical nuclear weapons to stop further resistance.
I guess I lose my bet that the end of humanity would come from war in the Middle East.
Forget about MAD or Deterrence. The only MADness here is Putin. If he does what he says what he will do (and he seems to rarely back down from anything due to his massive ego), most of the First World countries are going to immediately join forces to invade and permanently occupy Russia. This is obviously much harder than it sounds, and with lots of radioactive fallout there will be far more civilian causalities than in any other war ever imagined. The only question is - can Putin visualize the worst case scenario at all or has he completely lost his mind?
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
I thought we were through with all this by the turn of the century. And I mean you can say that he's bluffing but really, Putin's a psychopath. If you corner a genuine bona fide psycho they'll take you down with them if they can, and they don't need any 72 virgins as an excuse either. Even if he's not, he'll have to act like one - to lose face in his position would represent a fundamental weakening of power, he'd lose support overnight, be deposed and likely disposed of.
It would seem to me that western leaders have been caught with their pants well and truly around their ankles in this situation, I doubt they were expecting this kind of heavy handedness, er, ever again. So my guess is they'll back out and leet him have his way.
Putin has a massive ego, yes. But he's also a realist.
He knows that no other superpower will do anything no matter what he does. Certainly not the U.S. No-one has or will do anything about a whole jetliner of people shot out of the sky with citizens from around the world, why would they about a war in the Ukraine?
Your notion anyone would join forces to invade Russia is the real madness...
So he does whatever he wants because he can. And people are surprised about that?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
While this sort of news is important, without a doubt, I just don't see why it's on Slashdot's front page. This submission contains nothing but political news.
There are thousands upon thousands of news and discussion web sites that focus on politics and current events of this sort. We can go there if we want to read and discuss news such as that in this submission.
There are comparatively fewer web sites focusing on technology, mathematics, science, and computing. Slashdot was such a site. We'd be able to come here to find articles and dicussion that wouldn't be readily available from other sources or venues.
Please, keep Slashdot about technical topics. Leave the politics for other sites! Please!
Regardless of political preferences... I simply can't imagine in what form those threats could have been made. Phone call? Letter? Email? How can anyone be so [IMHO, unrealistically] stupid to mention using nuclear weapons knowing that every word in today's communications is being recorded and would be published by the opposite side?
P.S. Thank you Slashdot for posting at least 2-3 stories about Ukraine every day. I guess this is really the stuff that matters to nerds that much.
The whole idea that there is no actual Russian invasion falls a little flat when there are captured and dead Russian soldiers in Ukraine, and the official Russian line is that those soldiers, apparently with all of their military equipment and supplies, voluntarily invaded Ukraine on their vacations. You would think that Russia wouldn't want their soldiers taking tanks and artillery on vacation with them, but maybe they just do things a little differently in Russia.
By the way, it's just "Ukraine", not "the Ukraine". I would expect 8 former intelligence officials to know that, or at least be consistent in their so-called "memo".
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Full transcript of this youth camp Q and A session is available here.
OK, I guess this "story" qualifies as "stuff that matters", but can we at least get something more than a smattering of links to stories that are yesterday's news? Putin made his comment 4 days ago, and damn near every think in the summary points to stories that are three days old (and contain more than their share of unsubstantiated speculation).
I'm not normally one to make "why is this on slashdot?" posts. But taking into account the predilections of the submitter, I gotta say this comes off as a troll submission.
1) Putin is just posturing re: tactical nukes.
2) If Russia used tactical nukes, at least against NATO troops, it would go *very* badly for Russia. We're talking collapse-their-economy bad at the absolute minimum.
Kiev has received threats of nuclear retaliation from Russia through unofficial channels if it continues to fight pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine, the Ukrainian Minister of Defence, Valeriy Heletey, announced on his Facebook page on Monday.
This is news for nerds, for people who are supposed to love science. Science is, when you can prove things, reproduce them. An announcement from someone on the losing side who has an interest in dragging NATO into this is not a statement that can be relied on. It is not even mentioned what the unofficial channel, is, nor was any kind of prove provided, like with all the rest of the anti-Russian propaganda, btw.
I expect tomorrow news on ./ to be: The pope said that God is real.
I can't tell you how comfortable I would be feeling, right this instant, were Palin vice president.
Obama didn't win; the GOP lost, both in 2008 and 2012. If you want to be angry at anyone, be angry at the GOP for giving us shit choices.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
This sounds like real news. You would think it would be on the front page of the world's news sites. However...
Isn't on the BBC
Isn't on the Guardian
Isn't on the Washington Post
Isn't on the New York Times*
Isn't on the LA Times
I detect a pattern here.
* The NYT does have on its home page a story entitled "Putin’s War of Words: A Roundup." I guess saying that "thousands of words are already pouring over its western borders" doesn't have quite the same pizazz.
There are no formed Russian military units pouring over the border. There are some Russian soldiers who are on leave and using their personal time to help the separatist movement in Ukraine, but there is absolutely NO ORGANIZED RUSSIAN EFFORT here.
I have a lot of family in Donetsk and Luhansk and it is BUSINESS AS USUAL there. The territory is now and has been operating as if it were part of Russia for MANY MANY YEARS. Nothing has changed except the installation of a westernist puppet as President who is now trying to re-integrate separatist regions under threat of force.
Nobody in eastern Ukraine considers themselves Ukrainian, including my Family who has lived there for generations. Eastern Ukraine has always been and will continue to be Russian.
He did, but he apparently paid attention.
Soviet influence on the peace movement
Russian GRU defector Stanislav Lunev said in his autobiography that "the GRU and the KGB helped to fund just about every antiwar movement and organization in America and abroad," and that during the Vietnam War the USSR gave $1 billion to American anti-war movements, more than it gave to the VietCong.[19] Lunev described this as a "hugely successful campaign and well worth the cost".[19] According to Time magazine, a US State Department official estimated that the KGB may have spent $600 million on the peace offensive up to 1983, channeling funds through national Communist parties or the World Peace Council "to a host of new antiwar organizations that would, in many cases, reject the financial help if they knew the source."[13] Richard Felix Staar in his book Foreign Policies of the Soviet Union says that non-communist peace movements without overt ties to the USSR were "virtually controlled" by it. Lord Chalfont claimed that the Soviet Union was giving the European peace movement £100 million a year. The Federation of Conservative Students (FCS) alleged Soviet funding of CND.
In 1985 Time magazine noted "the suspicions of some Western scientists that the nuclear winter hypothesis was promoted by Moscow to give antinuclear groups in the U.S. and Europe some fresh ammunition against America's arms buildup."[20] Sergei Tretyakov claimed that the data behind the nuclear winter scenario was faked by the KGB and spread in the west as part of a campaign against Pershing missiles.[21] He said that the first peer-reviewed paper in the development of the nuclear winter hypothesis, "Twilight at Noon" by Paul Crutzen and John Birks (1982),[22] was published as a result of this KGB influence.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Anyone remember that itty-bitty little mistake of invading the wrong country after 9/11 based on falsified intellegence?
On a scale of 0 to Iraq, how does Putin invading Ukraine rate?
Why is Snark Required?
Geeks are thinkers, by nature. We'll all think off in a nutty direction sometimes, but it's always good to see what's on a few peoples minds.
Slashdot is somewhat international, and we get to moderate posts. It's like reading through the comments portions of an article without all nonsense drowning out the relevant viewpoints.
I'm even more sad that so many Americans would STILL vote for this guy today simply because they're Democrats and that's that.
Low as my opinion of Obama is, I'd certainly vote for him again if he was running against the same two clowns as last time, or the two psychopaths from the time before.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
This whole Ukraine 'crisis' is made in the USA. Most of the 'news' you hear about it is disinformation, and patent bullshit. Putin was saying, look, we don't want Kiev - if we did, we could take it, but we don't. Meanwhile the US (NATO) is making all kinds of threatening and provocative noises. So Putin was just reminding folks that look, we are not just some other shit country you can make roll over for the Empire.
Of course. this can not stand, according to the idiots that spout foreign policy in Washington. But it will.
You can't fault a guy for being an optimist. Hindsight is 20/20. Fault him for what he's doing right now.
Great. Conspiracy theorists.
Everyone except Russia has a consistent story.
Russia also recently denied having troops in Crimea prior to the annexation... until later Putin admitted he'd lied.
Let's not even get into the good ol' soviet knack for bullshit.
Of course, *some people* insist on believing contrived stories instead of logical conclusions.
Oh my, a member of a recently created government (appointed by coup), who is facing unrest from their own citizens, and is upset about outside assistance by another power (And US, Europe, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Israel don't?) is posting to his Facebook page that said outside force is planning mass murder. Stop the presses! This "story" has all of the validity of a small time drug dealer scrawling a message on a bathroom wall about the cities drug kingpin planning to release a plague in the city because..... well..... he can?
Europe has only had 100 years to mess things up.
The Ottomans and all of the other Islamic empires are much more responsible for what state the Middle East is in today. Why can't the 3 factions in Iraq get along? Why can't the factions in Lebanon get along? Why can't the factions in Syria get along. Why does Egypt despise the Gazans just as much as the Israelis do?
This probably has more to do with the 1000+ years these territories spent under the control of various Islamic empires ending with the Ottomans.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Contrary. Mostly German-speaking Moravian (Austro/Czech) - by way of England.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
What satellite photos are you expecting to see? The US military satellites whose images are classified? Or were you expecting the cable networks to somehow turn their broadcast satellites into spy satellites? You're a total asshat.
First, i think Russia does have troops in the Ukriane.
But there are commercial entities in both Europe and the US who have satalites capable of taking photos with astounding resolutions. Google is one that comes to mind. Back in the 90s, ms had a site called terraserve or something like that which had sat photos of such resolution that you could read markings on stopped semi trailers. Of course that didn't last long before the US government limited the resolutions allowed to be released- which they just recently relaxed.
So i think it is a legitimate question. Where are all the sat photos of this incursion? We had tons of them when that plane disapeared. They were commercial photos and we were asked to look for potential wreckage from the plane.
NATO has pictures of Russian units operating in Ukraine
http://www.newsweek.com/nato-s...
Rebel forces admit the Russians are fighting with them.
The Ukrainian government says Russian forces are in their country fighting them.
Russia and Ukraine have swapped prisoners, including Russian airborne soldiers captured in Ukraine.
Exactly what sort of proof were you looking for that this isn't enough?
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
The whole idea that there is no actual Russian invasion falls a little flat when there are captured and dead Russian soldiers in Ukraine, and the official Russian line is that those soldiers, apparently with all of their military equipment and supplies, voluntarily invaded Ukraine on their vacations. You would think that Russia wouldn't want their soldiers taking tanks and artillery on vacation with them, but maybe they just do things a little differently in Russia.
By the way, it's just "Ukraine", not "the Ukraine". I would expect 8 former intelligence officials to know that, or at least be consistent in their so-called "memo".
It's not actually incorrect to say 'The Ukraine'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N...
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
And did you hear, rvz.ru/~vladimir/bullshit.html is reporting that Ukraine is now working with ALIENS and THE ILLUMINATI to force Russian mothers in the Donbass to eat their own babies! It's TRUE!
Freedom House on press freedom in Russia. Reporters Without Borders's take.
It's one thing if you're dumb enough to take state propaganda outlets of a country that takes #148th place on the press freedom ranking, where even blogs are forced to register with government censors if they get too many readers and where it's standard practice to hire actors to play parts in the news. But it's even more ridiculous when you do so in regards to an event where said propaganda outlets have put forth literally more than a dozen different, completely contradictory reasons why it's not Russia's fault, including but not limited to "we have proof Ukraine shot it down with a surface-to-air missle", "we have proof Ukraine shot it down with an air-to-air missile", "we have proof that Ukraine gunned it down with a fighter cannon", "we have proof that Ukraine rammed it", "we have proof that Ukraine loaded a plane full of dead bodies, disguised it as a civilian airliner and tricked the rebels into shooting it down", "we have proof that Ukraine deliberately tricked the rebels into shooting down an actual civilian airliner", and my favorite - the original reported in the Russian press, before it became clear that it was a civilian aircraft - "we've confirmed that the heroic rebels of the Donbas just successfully shot down a Ukranian military jet!"
Could chocolate let me finish?
Except, this is how World Wars get started. There is a Treaty in play. One that says, we Ukraine will disarm all our nuclear weapons if you the USA will come to our aid should we ever be invaded. Which is why I suspect there is all this word play as to if Russia has indeed "Invaded" Ukraine or not. If indeed Russia has invaded Ukraine, then the USA would be obligated to come to their aid significantly, as would any others that signed the treaty. Not only that, you would get allies that have signed pacts with the involved countries for mutual military actions, then so on and repeat until everyone is involved and you get a World War. Combine that with the fact that the two major combatants would be the largest nuclear weapons owners, is cause for concern, particularly if one is currently rattling that saber.
However even if it came to conventional war, using nuclear weapons would be insane. The one and only time it was considered and used, was because the potential casualty rate was expected to be well over 1 million troops for a conventional invasion of Japan to force capitulation. The largest war in recent history lasted nearly 10 years, yet less than 5,000 US troops were killed. Think about how far those two numbers are apart. Even then the two devices were in the kiloton range not the megaton. The US isn't going to invade Russia, and Russia isn't going to invade the US.
Anyway if the US doesn't honor the Treaty it brings into question all their previous treaties, pacts, alliances, etc... as being worthless and subject to political whim.
The source of the "5000 troops in organized groups" is an 'anonymous government source'. The source of the "they are threatening to nuke us, they claim they will nuke us if necessary" is the Ukrainian government itself, the second least trustworthy source in the region. NOT GOOD ENOUGH. NOT BY FAR.
Without question they've been transferring in armoured equipment, and I wouldn't doubt the number of 1000, and some cross border shelling is believable (something the Russians think they could get away with), but whenever actual media on the ground go looking through "newly won rebel territory", they find nothing but locals. The Ukrainians haven't captured any regular Russian forces in actual combat, just that one small unit out of position near the border weeks ago.
The funniest thing in all of this is that weeks ago when the Ukrainians were making gains, they refused to negotiate while the Russians and Rebels seemed to be willing. Now that the rebels are making gains, guess what? Ukraine wants to negotiate, the rebels not so much.
This "slashdot submission" is dangerously alarmist, and completely unacceptable. The mainstream media needs to be a LOT MORE sensible about what drivel they publish. We cannot allow ourselves to get ourselves hyped up about imaginary dangers.
It would be one hell of a crime if our vaunted "fifth estate" ... normally such a pivotal key part of democratic and free countries ... helps drag us deeper into a pile of crap because they are pursuing advertising dollars.
I doubt that google has its own satellites.
They buy the photos like anyone else does from the "owners"
Where are all the sat photos of this incursion?
Stupid question, don't you think so?
Who owns the satellites up there? Mainly companies in NATO countries. A very few Indian, a few more Chinese and lots of Russians.
I don't even know if India and China have "spy" satellites or only telecommunication ones.
So: obviously in a crisis like this the companies owning satellites have court/martial law orders not to disclose anything like this. Or what would you do as the President of France when a french company threatens to put you into a war with Russia because it posts detailed troop movements in the internet?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
The commercial satellite imagery company DigitalGlobe has provided commercial imagery that corroborates NATO claims that Russian forces are operating in Ukraine.
Here is a link to a news story that documented this over a week ago.
Unfortunately, posting this will undo a few troll mods. Eh.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
It's clear that Russia has weapons of mass destruction. The US has no choice but to invade and force a regime change before Putin can totally destabilize an already volatile region. Who's with me?
Chelloveck
I give up on debugging. From now on, SIGSEGV is a feature.