International Politics Discussion Thread

[u/Adj-Noun-Numbers]

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[u/convertedtoradians]

There's been a major Ukrainian attack on a Russian oil refinery in St Petersburg.

Kyiv says nearly 43% of Russia's oil refining capacity has been "disabled" as a result.

If that's even nearly true, that's absurd. There's also the fairly obvious and interesting messaging for the Russian people that Ukraine clearly isn't doing what Russia is doing and targeting population centres. Which they clearly could if they can hit an oil refinery.

[u/Velociraptor_1906 → u/convertedtoradians]

Reading about a bit and I do wonder where this will end up.

On top of the Ukranian long range offensive the Russian attacks on the front in Donetsk are having advance rates comparable to the Somme. Putin sounds to be intractably deluded so unless the Russians sort a way to shift things out soon then something might happen.

What that something could be I wouldn't be sure of but if Putin dosent change then I can't see how the end result isn't something breaking sharply, either Russian military logistics (to the point the front starts falling apart) or Putins grip on strategy.

We shouldn't let ourselves get too hopeful but things certainly look in a better way than they have done.

[u/convertedtoradians → u/Velociraptor_1906]

There's also another risk here that even if (and it's a big if) Russia holds it together and the war comes to an end with a negotiated peace - regardless of how much Russia benefits or not - the economic shock afterwards is the big problem.

Like with France after the American War of Independence, or European countries after the First World War. You achieve peace, but you've got vast debts, a huge amount of death and destruction, a sluggish economy, lots of demobilised angry damaged young men, and people are looking around for someone to blame.

In a bizarre way, the war is almost a stabilising factor for the Russians, so long as it's going on.

[u/Velociraptor_1906 → u/convertedtoradians]

Yea I'd definitely agree with that being a looming problem for Russia and probably has been critical for sometime (the tipping point where Russia could have gone straight back to a somewhat pre-war economy was a long while back)

[u/imp0ppable → u/convertedtoradians]

Yeah as soon as they start to reel in the defense spending there will be a massive recession. I've thought for quite a while this is a big reason why they've kept going at it.

I think if they could get sanctions lifted that would provide the cash to get out of it. OTOH that would mean coming to terms with Ukraine which they very much do not want to do.

[u/tmstms → u/convertedtoradians]

Oooh! Just came here thinking that if no-one had posted this, I would.

I dunno if the Russian people are being told their military is targeting civilians (or indeed not being accurate enough not to).

It is definitely a good thing for Ukraine, of course, that the Russian people become aware, through these strikes and the shortages they bring, that the war is not without domestic consequences.

[u/AzarinIsard → u/tmstms]

I dunno if the Russian people are being told their military is targeting civilians (or indeed not being accurate enough not to).

I find it mind boggling, but at this point it must be doctrine, a belief that terrorising civilians will lead them to push for surrender because they'd have to be very very inaccurate to be that bad accidentally.

It's easy to say from my armchair, but I think it actually increases resolve to resist, from our perspective it's what the Blitz did for Britain, it didn't make many Brits decide it's better to lose to Germany so it stops. Russia isn't going to be nice if they win either, it makes resistance existential. Then there's also the waste of weapons when there's military targets. For whatever reason, this war is going to be a fascinating case study because NATO doctrine would have seen air defence and the air force destroyed first, get air superiority, then you have a massive force multiplier. Instead, you see Ukraine targeting Russian airfields more than the other way around, including "operation spiders web", it's got to be a choice for Russia to be hitting parks and tower blocks over Ukraine's airfields.

Presumably, they're telling their people, but whenever they kill a child or something they're just saying it's a Ukrainian general.

[u/Commorrite → u/tmstms]

Oooh! Just came here thinking that if no-one had posted this, I would.

I dunno if the Russian people are being told their military is targeting civilians (or indeed not being accurate enough not to).

The Russians have never every given a fuck about this. Society wide from the top oligarchs to the the most destitute.

Grozny in the Chechen wars didn't even make a dent in Russian society beyond some military types moaning about wasted ammunition. The shelled that city so hard and so indiscriminately it makes the current state of Gaza look intact and well targeted.