Summary

Germany warns that Russia is rearming faster than expected, replacing war losses and stockpiling tanks, missiles, and drones.

Putin has redirected Russia’s economy to fuel its military, aided by supplies from Iran and North Korea.

While there’s no clear evidence of plans to attack NATO, Russia is creating the conditions for it.

On the Ukraine front, Russian forces are advancing in south Donetsk, nearing strategic town Pokrovsk, a key supply hub and coal mining center.

Analysts suggest Putin aims to seize land before potential peace talks.

  • ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml
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    12 hours ago

    Simultaneously so weak and incompetent that they can’t take a village of 80 year olds but so scary that they’ll go to war with like a fifth of the planet.

    How does the Umberto Eco thing go again?

    • TheFriar@lemm.ee
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      5 hours ago

      While there’s no clear evidence of plans to attack NATO, Russia is creating the conditions for it.

      This is also a very telling sentence.

      “There’s not evidence this is even on their minds or that they would ever attempt such a monumentally stupid move, buuut…just use your 🌈 imagination 💫”

      • mount_snowden@lemmy.ml
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        5 hours ago

        The Telegraph loves this. “<Insert shocking headline> MAY OCCUR!!” = It has not been proven mathematically impossible.

        While there’s no clear evidence of plans to attack NATO, Russia is creating the conditions for it.

        Have they read the news within the last 3 years?

    • john89@lemmy.ca
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      2 hours ago

      Simultaneously so weak and incompetent that they can’t take a village of 80 year olds

      If they’re that weak, why hasn’t Ukraine beaten them out yet?

    • InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      I mean Russia is doing quite poorly. Even if the Ukrainian Army poofs out of existence today and gives Russian a leisurely stroll to the capital its still kind of a pyrrhic victory. They have done well to go in a war economy and have learned from their mistakes, but they are still punching under their expected weight.

  • HappySkullsplitter@lemmy.world
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    11 hours ago

    Russia has faced a tiny fraction of NATO’s combined military strength and has failed to produce any meaningful results. Attacking NATO would be suicidal

    • john89@lemmy.ca
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      2 hours ago

      and has failed to produce any meaningful results.

      The absolute delusion among you people.

        • john89@lemmy.ca
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          2 hours ago

          Yeah, war really brings out the stupidity in you people.

          You just can’t understand propaganda for what it is.

          • HappySkullsplitter@lemmy.world
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            1 hour ago

            You keep saying “you people” as if the war would affect you lol

            I guess I must just be too stupid to preemptively surrender

    • eronth@lemmy.world
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      7 hours ago

      Yeahhhh, but what if someone in charge of the US sides with them instead of against them.

    • Pilferjinx@lemmy.world
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      4 hours ago

      If you think other allies would unite as a matter of course, you haven’t been paying attention.

      • HappySkullsplitter@lemmy.world
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        2 hours ago

        I’ve been at this long enough to know when I see an incredibly pessimistic take.

        People play patheticly when it’s only money involved, see how things change when shit gets real.

  • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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    18 hours ago

    They’re betting on their fascist puppet in the US tearing apart NATO, so they don’t have to worry about such things when they start eyeing the Baltic states.

    • ChicoSuave@lemmy.world
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      16 hours ago

      And what, lose another 3 years and a third of the country’s young to losing the fight for Estonia? Russia is absolutely incapable of successfully invading anything. They couldn’t even stay in Syria when a bunch of untrained militia said they might show up later. Russia is weak.

      • john89@lemmy.ca
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        2 hours ago

        Russia is absolutely incapable of successfully invading anything.

        Why is Ukraine constantly begging for help, then?

      • marcos@lemmy.world
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        15 hours ago

        As long as there is an war going on for the rest of Putin’s life, I don’t think he cares about the any of those problems.

        All he cares about is that if there isn’t a war going on, Russians will start to look at what their own government does.

  • rustyfish@lemmy.world
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    13 hours ago

    As my GM once said, right before I TPK’d my whole group: “You can certainly try.”

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    17 hours ago

    I’m sorry, but even with the U.S. out of NATO, Russia would get their ass kicked. Putin must know that.

    • TimeSquirrel@kbin.melroy.org
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      17 hours ago

      All depends on if NATO as a whole isn’t just a bluff. Are the UK, Germany and France, the three remaining major economies after the US leaves, actually going to go to war with Russia over Lithuania (no offense at all toward Lithuanians), for example? That’s what he’s testing, and that’s why he wants the US out.

      • barsoap@lemm.ee
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        3 hours ago

        NATO could crumble and Germany and France would still come to Lithuania’s aid, they’re an EU member. With NATO gone UK might technically not be on the hook any more but they’d still get into the fray, despite their faults and their insistence that they’re not they’re still Europeans.

        The actually difficult part would be stopping Poland from bee-lining for Moscow, nukes be damned. They don’t spend 4.7% of GDP because they plan on sitting back.

          • Madison420@lemmy.world
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            15 hours ago

            Yes.

            I’m not sure if people know the history of trilateral defense agreements.

            Iirc it was the French and English who put their war on hold to fight the Spanish specifically because of a weird defense pact.

            • RedditRefugee69@lemmynsfw.com
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              14 hours ago

              Do you mind if I borrow your crystal ball? You seem unusually certain of things most leading experts would call “very likely.”

        • Carrolade@lemmy.world
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          15 hours ago

          This is actually not true.

          Article Five states that an attack on one becomes an attack on all. This wording is very specific, and they wrote it with this wording intentionally, to get people to be willing to agree to join.

          It does not require counterattacks or declarations of war, merely that you consider an attack on a member an attack on you.

          How do people respond to different sorts of attacks? How can they theoretically respond if they so choose? These are the kinds of games being played in Putin’s head.

          • Cypher@lemmy.world
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            9 hours ago

            Article 5

            The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.

            Any such armed attack and all measures taken as a result thereof shall immediately be reported to the Security Council. Such measures shall be terminated when the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security.”

            https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_110496.htm

            As far as mutual defence treaties go Article 5 is worded very strongly and any nation failing to provide assistance to a member nation would find itself a pariah.

            The chances that an article 5 event involving Russia doesn’t trigger full scale war are slim to none.

    • blakenong@lemmings.world
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      17 hours ago

      I think the plan is to be ready for WWIII, when China, Russia, Iran, and… haha…. North Korea, team up.

  • endeavor@sopuli.xyz
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    15 hours ago

    lmao, russians can stockpile rocks and have their propaganda call it best weapon ever.

  • nexguy@lemmy.world
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    16 hours ago

    It takes Russia weeks/months to take a tiny village at the cost of thousands of soldiers. They can’t attack NATO.

    I mean they can… but it would go as expected.

  • FartsWithAnAccent@fedia.io
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    16 hours ago

    Kinda seems like Russia is getting fucked up pretty badly already and they haven’t even taken one country. Seems doubtful they would have much luck against an alliance.

    • Tujio@lemmy.world
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      14 hours ago

      If the US leaves that alliance and then starts surreptitiously sending drone parts to Russia, it’ll get dicey.

      If the AfD forms a coalition government with the normal conservatives and Germany decides to turn inwards and keep Deutsche money für die Deutscher, it’ll get dicey.

      If Macron finally completes his heel turn and appoints Marine le Pen to interior secretary…

      If Italy keeps going the way they’ve been going…

      If the Finnish right decides that joining NATO was a mistake that let too many minorities in…

      If the rest of Africa goes along with the Sahel nations and starts funneling their resources into the Russian war machine…

      If Modhi lets Russia open more factories in India…

      If China decides that they’re cool with sharing power on the global scale and fully buys in on the BRICS bloc…

      Russia looks weak right now because the invasion has been such and embarrassment, but that can change surprisingly quickly. The global shift towards authoritarianism is coming hand-in-hand with a shift away from US/Eurocentric hegemony.

        • Saleh@feddit.org
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          10 hours ago

          These arent nested. Any of these can happen independently and any one of them happening makes some others more likely to happen too.

          Each of them adds to shifting the balance of power and noone knows where the breaking point is.

          Of course there is also a few IFs going the other way around, or were we just know it will have an impact but not which way

          If the Russian people get fed up with the economy…

          If Putin dies…

          If Trump dies…

          If Xi dies…

          If there is an escalation in South East Asia…

          If there is a further escalation in West Asia…

          If there is a major climate event in Russia/Eastern Europe/Western Europe/North America…

        • earphone843@sh.itjust.works
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          13 hours ago

          You vastly underestimate the size and power of the US military. This isn’t even a brag; it’s atrocious that our military is so large, but the US would have little trouble taking on Europe.

          • barsoap@lemm.ee
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            2 hours ago

            The US can’t project power without aircraft carriers which would be gone quite quickly. Noone has a counter against stealth subs and Europe has both the best and plenty.

          • FartsWithAnAccent@fedia.io
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            13 hours ago

            That’s what they said about Afghanistan too though. Plus, the odds of the US getting directly involved in a war against Europe any time soon are still pretty damn low.

  • Rentlar@lemmy.ca
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    16 hours ago

    An armchair analyst take here but I think they are gearing up to finally try to take Pokrovsk in the spring.

    Folks at lemmy.ml were shouting from the rafters most of last year: Invading Kursk was a mistake! Russia will drive them back, and Pokrovsk will fall any day now! But like Avdiivka, I expect it to be a siege and for it to take a while. If they can take it early enough this year, Russia will again be able to conquer massive swaths of farmland because that’s really the only thing the “throw bodies at the problem” strategy is very effective at. If Ukraine holds out until the late fall, Russia will again be stalled for months, so the pace of their entire army will be “1 regional hub per year”, which I’m not sure is sustainable for Russia’s economy and society.

    • Triasha@lemmy.world
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      13 hours ago

      Honestly the pace of Russian advancement has been slowing down which is understandable because their losses are not sustainable. Their only hope for true victory is if Ukrainian losses are even less sustainable.

      This is possible, especially if Germany and the US, the 2 wealthiest partners, cut off or scale back aid. But at the moment Ukraine seems slightly ahead of the attrition game and the US just INCREASED sanctions.

      • SineIraEtStudio@midwest.social
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        3 hours ago

        Perun (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EHUQmJCa3aY) just released a video yesterday that went over Ukraine’s war material situation.

        TLDW: Ukrainian military equipment is for the most part qualitatively better than it was at the start of the war but not quantitatively.

        Russia on the other hand is qualitatively worse, is running out of reserve war equipment (Soviet stockpiles), and is expected to deplete some of categories of equipment sometime in 2024 (tank stockpile source: Covert Cabal https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=K8CcuVCDEUw).

        Edit: some spelling mistakes.

        • Triasha@lemmy.world
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          4 hours ago

          That’s about what I thought. Ukraine has gotten 40 trucks here, 12 tanks there. Better than the old Soviet stuff Russia is using, but not enough to decisively turn the tables.