Thread

1. Shank · 1790247119 · focus · HN ↗

   It feels like it’s very, very risky territory for these activities to be “occurring” in a NATO country. I’m sure everyone else is thinking the same thing, but at what point does Article 5 get invoked?

   1. jwr · 1790247914 · focus · HN ↗

      It's a typical Russian strategy: gradually increase the intensity of operations, while pretending you have nothing to do with it. That is exactly how war in Ukraine began (way back with the first incursions of "little green men").

      What we have been seeing is this gradual escalation. It's like boiling a frog slowly. Each escalation is too small to trigger a significant response, but after a while you suddenly notice that your country is burning.

      I expect more of this in the near future. I wish the world stopped treating Russia as "just another business partner".

      1. vintermann · 1790248586 · focus · HN ↗

         Ukraine is currently striking facilities deep inside Russia.

         Russia could hit back in the same way easily, and to some degree they do. But their problem is that the equivalent weapons factories, refineries etc. often aren't in Ukraine, but in NATO countries supplying Ukraine and giving Ukraine explicit permission to use them against targets inside Russia - until they got that in May 2024, Ukraine understandably did not risk alienating their suppliers by doing that.

         There aren't very many new lines of escalation crossed here. Russia views it as NATOs proxy war against them now - many hawks in the west haven't been shy about describing it as such either.

         1. applfanboysbgon · 1790248840 · focus · HN ↗

            GTFO, Russian propagandist. If Russia dislikes the state of affairs there's a reallyyy easy solution: don't invade other countries baselessly. "NATO's proxy war" is a really funny way to describe the Russian war of aggression.

            1. vintermann · 1790249347 · focus · HN ↗

               Where's the lie? I said they now see it as NATOs proxy war against them, and western hawks are not shy about talking about it in those terms.

               Yeah, they probably didn't expect it to turn into that when they attacked - they probably hoped it'd be all over in a week with a regime change in Kyiv. It's now they're thinking, shit, we were goaded into another Afghanistan. Which again, is not a way western hawks are shy of talking about it.

               1. invader · 1790255622 · focus · HN ↗

                  The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was a cakewalk compared to what is going on today. 15k dead in 10 years, and the USSR was twice as big as modern ruzzia, so it is more like 7k dead for ruzzia alone. Now compare that to 4.5 years of the invasion of Ukraine - these wars are on a totally different scale. The Afghan affair was a remote low-profile endeavour; ports and oil refineries weren't burning all over the Soviet Union.

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