Russia has warm relations with India, which has traditionally bought a lot of Soviet/Russian military hardware. Meanwhile Pakistan has very warm relations with China and is a major Belt and Road partner.
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Read between the lines a bit. I’m guessing the US has it’s special forces already in place before this news came out.
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If Putin succeeds in Ukraine the Baltic states know that they’re next in The Shirtless Wonder’s sights. Unlike Ukraine they’re NATO member states, which explains this signalling by the U.S.
Right behind the resurgence of fascism in the West, the last thing I wanted to see in my lifetime was a return of this kind of aggressive sparring between nuclear-armed Great Powers. But here we are.
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Russia and India vs. China and Pakistan would make for very interesting blocs. China and Pakistan seem more like a marriage of convenience tied together by a mutual enemy, but that can be enough to start a war.
That said, warm relations or not, I do not see Russia sticking its neck out for India’s sake, especially when the Belt and Road Initiative really does appear (on the face of it at least) beneficial to Russia as well as China. It could really be an economic boon for Russia and countries in its orbit.
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Putin insists that “NATO” troops must not be deployed to NATO members in eastern Europe. This is illogical because their own armies count as NATO forces, but preventing them hosting foreign forces would make membership useless and leave them depending entirely on their own forces if Russia invaded.
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Deployment within hours if not minutes
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If “something happens to America,” everybody is going to shit themselves when Japan gets up off the bench
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https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/25/us-europe-russia-gas-supplies-energy
Meanwhile, the flow of arms to Ukraine has accelerated. US officials confirmed that a plane carrying hundreds of anti-tank Javelin missiles had arrived in Kyiv, and a shipment of more Javelins is ready to go from Estonia.
“On the Javelins, this is decided and we have the endorsement from the US, so it’s just a matter of time when we’re going to send them out,” an Estonian official said, adding they would be sent “as soon as possible”.
The Estonian government also intends to sent Ukraine howitzer guns but is still waiting on approval from Germany, where the guns originated and Finland which supplied some of the guns to Estonia.
“With the howitzers, we don’t have an official answer from the Germans nor the Finns. So as far as we don’t have these, we cannot say if it’s going to be a yes or no. We are going to wait for it,” the official said. A joint German-Estonia delivery of field hospitals, planned last summer, is due to go ahead in the next few weeks.
Latvia and Lithuania are supplying Stinger anti-aircraft missiles to Ukraine. The UK has sent 2,000 anti-tank missiles and Saxon armoured cars, and Turkey has supplied Bayraktar drones.
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No, he does not.
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A real thing in our dumb times.
For all that Putin’s stooges talk about the (very real) fascist elements in Ukrainian society, they studiously ignore the sado-populist authoritarian streak in Russia that’s helped to keep their right-wing autocratic idol in power.
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I remember reading that Russian fascists were angry that they couldn’t call themselves fascists any more, because fascism was now inextricably associated with Ukrainian nationalism,
P.S.
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Russia may be backing down on its invasion threats.
It looks like Biden’s strategy of shoring up the NATO alliance and treating its partners in Europe with respect (in contrast to the Former Guy’s more Putin-friendly approach) may pay off. Sometimes you have to stand up to a bully instead of appeasing him.
The Shirtless Wonder saw the botched U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan as a signal to roll the dice on Ukraine. The bet isn’t paying off as he hoped and the West might actually emerge from this crisis with a stronger and more equitable defensive alliance.
Elsewhere, Russia has pulled its troops from Kazakhstan more quickly than expected (nothing to do with that call from Xi, I’m sure /s) and will doubtless fall back on blaming the domestic opposition (and its imprisoned leader) for the debacle.
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Perhaps this is a parallel of what often happens with North Korea. The media in the West will talk about how war is imminent, but South Korea will be like, “Nah, they just flexing.” One can hope.
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