• takeda@kbin.social
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      Poland won’t, but according to Hitler in September 1st, 1939, Nazi Germany was defending itself from Polish attacks.

      I think putin is thinking of forcing Belarus with Wagner to attack Poland and see how NATO will react when the threat would be war with Russia (if NATO will respond, which I hope it will, I think Belarus will get the same help as Armenia).

      • magnetosphere@kbin.social
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        I think NATOs response would have to be a strong, decisive one. No NATO member wants the Alliance to look weak. Nobody wants World War III, either, but I think they’d conclude that showing weakness is riskier than calling Putin’s bluff.

    • eleitl@lemmy.ml
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      Poland is a major supply hub and has lost plenty of boots on the ground. Art 5 isn’t automatic. US won’t risk nuking for expendables. All Europe is expendable.

      • maynarkh@feddit.nl
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        Europe has nukes, and an industrial capacity that dwarfs Russia multiple times over and is roughly equal to the US.

        Russia has about as much chance attacking Europe as Japan would attacking China on their own.

        Also without Europe, the US has no capacity to develop semiconductors better than what Russia has. In the extremely unlikely event Europe falls to Russia, the US will not be far behind.

        • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
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          Europe does not have an industrial capacity that comes anywhere close to Russia as is clearly evidenced by the fact that Europe can’t even produce basic things like artillery shells at this point. Furthermore, European industrial capacity needs energy to function and the cost of that has gone up significantly. All of this is well documented in mainstream western media, so it’s kind of shocking that somebody could be this misinformed https://archive.ph/61ruk

          • maynarkh@feddit.nl
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            Just read the first line of that article you linked below the title.

            Defense contractors are under pressure to ramp up production but want long term government guarantees of sales

            It’s not that the West has run out of artillery shells. It’s that the West’s MIC is not willing to ramp up production, since we are not at war, and there is no guarantee that additional manufacturing capacity will pay off for weapons manufacturers once the war ends and there is no need for it any longer.

            The EU, particularly Germany has gone through a massive disarmament since the Cold War. It still spends twice as much on its military in absolute terms as Russia. If we are talking total industrial capacity, the EU has 8 times the GDP of Russia.

            Just on artillery shells, the 5th biggest artillery force in the world just joined NATO. Do you expect their reserves to be empty?

            • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
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              Uh yeah welcome to capitalist economic relations. Companies aren’t going to build giant factories to pump out weapons and ammunition unless they make their money back. Given that EU is now going into a recession and the standard of living is dropping rapidly, gonna be hard to justify all the government subsidies needed to convince your capitalists to start manufacturing weapons.

              Meanwhile, GDP overall doesn’t mean shit. It’s the industrial that actually matters. Most of EU GDP comes from ephemeral things like tourism and service industry. The only major industrial power left in EU is Germany, and it’s becoming rapidly deindustrailized as we speak.

              Just on artillery shells, the 5th biggest artillery force in the world just joined NATO. Do you expect their reserves to be empty?

              Yeah I do, because if they weren’t empty US wouldn’t be sending cluster munitions to Ukraine right now. US even forced South Korea to send them shells before that happened. NATO lacks industrial capacity to produce weapons at the rate they’re being expanded, and anybody who’s been paying attention can see it.

              On the other hand, Russia inherited the military industrial complex from USSR days and unlike the west it never privatized or dismantled it. Now it’s been ramped up and to a capacity that NATO can only dream of.

        • eleitl@lemmy.ml
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          Russia has no interest in attacking Europe. US/NATO is the executive arm of longterm geopolitical interests that strive for total global dominance. They utilize sophisticated multipronged longterm strategies attempting to bring the rest of the planet under their control. Russia is a small part of that parcel.

          The ultima ratio regum part of it considers some geographies more expendable than others. Egress of core industries from the EU is deliberate part of the strategy. Vassals are ruled by compradors, so populations are captive. It’s direct oligarch control on the other side, so it’s simpler.

          MAD still applies. Both sides go to great lengths to avoid it, since the outcome is deterministic and global. Which is why the US would be a second target, if not already part of first strategic strike.

          Wars are confusing places, so potential for fatal mistakes is exponentiated.

            • eleitl@lemmy.ml
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              If you think you understand the conflict, you are not understanding the conflict. I have spent decades and lately far too much time on sources inaccessible to most, and I still feel underinformed.

              I noticed I commented on world news. My mistake. Lemmy keeps dropping the subscribed filter.

              • MaggiWuerze@feddit.de
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                Enlighten me, what are the attacks on Russians neighbours if not war? Please tell me how the Nato forced Russia to attack Georgia or Ukraine? Maybe you should question your “unaccessible to most” (lol) sources if your result is, that Russias not at fault here.

  • SpaceBar@lemmy.world
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    Belarus better stay within its boarders, because that the only way Belarus will be attacked.

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      I think after Poland ignored two Russian missiles, putin is thinking to use Wagner from Belarus to test and see what will happen if NATO country gets attacked. The normal answer would be that it would be war between Belarus and NATO. Which should be fairly quick. He is trying to tip the scale by saying Russia will be also back Belarus if attacked (BTW Hitler also stated WW2 claiming Poland attacked Nazi Germany), hoping that NATO won’t back up Poland.

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            I’m going off the deep end a bit here, but reports started off with two missiles. I thought it must have been a Ukrainian AA missile chasing a Russian cruise missile, with the Russian missile responsible for the deaths.

            Then news suddenly shut up about the second missile, and started selling it as one Ukrainian missile.

            I wouldn’t be surprised it was covered up so NATO didn’t get tested.

        • mihor@lemmy.ml
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          Indeed they were. Ukrainian S-300 missiles, they probably malfunctioned and went off in a random direction.

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        Thing is, every line Russia has drawn in the sand, accession to NATO, arms supplies to Ukraine etc have been proven to be empty words. Russia has backed off each time.

        An attack on Poland from Belarus would quickly lead to an invasion from Poland. Securing Ukraine’s northern border would free up a lot of Ukrainian resources and would put NATO soldiers in another neighboring country to Russia.

        It would be suicide for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

  • magnetosphere@kbin.social
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    No, Putin. An attack on Belarus is only an attack on Belarus. Someone would have to attack Russia for it to be an attack on Russia. Look at a fucking map.

    (Yes, I’m being obtuse, but giving this asshole a hard time makes me smile. Cut me some slack.)

  • xuxebiko@kbin.social
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    Putin’s standup act is very funny. He should quit his day job & take it up fulltime.

    • Luci@lemmy.ca
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      Idk, last guy who laughed at him had his country invaded.

      • xuxebiko@kbin.social
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        Putin’s been invading Ukraine since 2014. His 3-day special operation is going on for 514 days, had him running from a mutiny (I need a ride,not ammo!), has killed 241,330 Russians, has the Kerch bridge opening and closing like a fucking accordion, and is a global criminal. And all against a country with no nukes, no navy, barely an airforce, a tenth of Russia’s defense budget, and 28 times smaller than Russia.
        He’s losing so badly, the whole world’s laughing at him.

        As I said earlier, Putin’s standup act is very funny.

        • mihor@lemmy.ml
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          The 3-day myth was entirely a gaffe by the stupid general Milley. I’m not even going to address the other sci-fi numbers you blurted out as they are santa claus type of fantasy.

      • MrVilliam@lemmy.world
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        Oh no, I’m shaking in my boots. It sure would be a shame if the might of the Russian military invaded my country. They’re having trouble invading a small, neighboring nation by land, but I should totally fear them crossing an ocean to invade a nation that has an objectively superior military. Maybe if I defend him online, Putin will spare me. Notice me, Putin-san! uwu.

  • Duamerthrax@lemmy.ml
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    So is Belarus going to attack Poland now or is Putin planning a false flag attach again?

    • takeda@kbin.social
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      I think it’s probably Wagner was moved there for that reason and putin wants to test if alliance will be afraid to reason.

      If NATO responds then he sacrifices just Belarus, but if it won’t then other eastern countries are at risk.

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          I don’t think he cares about Wagner, he wants to see if NATO backs up Poland if Poland is attacked as a response to Poland “attacking” Belarus.

          BTW: Poland doesn’t have stellar reputation in the west, primarily because of politicians who attack west and strangely are warm towards Russia. One might say “what do you mean? Poland is very anti Russia” and this is true with most Poles, but the ruling party still continues fighting with the west, some even say that they don’t know which enemy is worse, west or east, like WTF? Then there’s a Konfederacja populist party by Russia which is fully against west and its leaders advocated to improve relations with Russia. Most members of course are less open and saying that we should give Russia what it wants or we get attacked.

          That was also the only party that demanded our politicians to apologize when a protester splashed Russian ambassador with red paint at the beginning of the full invasion.

  • Hupf@feddit.de
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    This night for the first time Polish regular soldiers fired on our territory. Since 5:45 a.m. we have been returning the fire, and from now on bombs will be met by bombs.

  • Jaysyn@kbin.social
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    Putin says a lot of stupid shit he’s incapable
    of doing, why would this be different?

  • TurnItOff_OnAgain@lemdro.id
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    I’m not up to snuff on NATO regulations. As I understand it, if a NATO nation gets attacked, the rest of them are obliged to defend, correct? What happens if that nation is “the aggressor”. Like in this situation if Poland were to do a first strike against Belarus or Russia and they respond attacking Poland, is the rest of NATO obliged to help defend Poland?

    • photonic_sorcerer@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      No, NATO doesn’t interfere if a member starts a war. It’s a defensive treaty. That said, Poland alone wouldn’t be able to do much, and democracies rarely openly declare war.

      • DauntingFlamingo@lemmy.ml
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        I had a deployment with Polish soldiers. They are a modern and extremely capable defensive force. It would likely turn into the same thing we’re seeing in Ukraine (smaller force that is well trained and better supplied vs sending a lot of bodies and old tech). I don’t think we’ll ever see a Polish led force invading Belarus or Russia without a massive NATO backing and a lot of foreign units already on the way to support them. Defensively, they will fuck you up. Offensively, they don’t have the man power to go deep into enemy territory.

        The Polish have historical grudges with Russia and are chomping at the bit to hurt some Russians. It is probably NATO that is holding them back from sending units to Ukraine

      • Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca
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        However what if a NATO country starts a war with Belarus, and then Russia attacks the NATO country?

        The NATO country would never have initiated a war with Russia, they would have initiated it with Belarus.

        Does a NATO country automatically become vulnerable if they have any wars currently ongoing? Because that would mean Russia could have attacked America during the war in Afghanistan and NATO would not have been able to get involved.

        • Wooly@lemmy.world
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          It’s probably a case where Russia could attack Poland’s forces in Belarus but attacking Polish soil would involve article 5.

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          The way it works is that the attacked country invokes article 5. If the country does it then other members are obligated to help. If they don’t, they are undermining NATO.

          Having said that, NATO doesn’t specify how countries supposed to respond. It could be something to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoney_War

          I think putin sending Wagner to Belarus is indeed thinking to force Belarus to attack Poland or a Baltic states and see what happens. Of course that would be simple, it would be Belarus vs NATO, and would end up quickly.

          So he is tipping the scale and saying that attacking Belarus will be also attacking Russia, hoping that it will be ignored like two Russian missiles hitting Poland. If it won’t be ignored, then he is just sacrificing Belarus.

    • • milan •@feddit.nl
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      As long as an attack happens on NATO territory, it’s considered an act of war. Even if the NATO country is the aggressor. Ideally the aggressing country would be suspended before they could invoke article 5.

      • SeaJ@lemm.ee
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        Unless there is a cover up like happened with those Russian missiles that hit Poland.

      • freagle@lemmygrad.ml
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        Imagine how dangerous it would be if NATO was, instead of a defensive pact, a transnational nuclear military helmed by the world’s foremost genocidal empire that marches across Europe via propaganda and coup d’etats towards it’s ultimate goal of encircling Russia and China. What a cluster fuck that would be? In that reality, if a member state launched a war of aggression NATO would probably support it and continue escalation.

        Luckily, we know NATO is a defensive force because it didn’t launch multiple wars of aggression, drop depleted uranium on civilians, and is democratically accountable.

            • takeda@kbin.social
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              Yes, it is, badly.

              BTW: since lemmy (and obviously lemmygrad) was created by communists. Can you explain to me what’s so communist about Russia that you and others are so fiercely defending? How are they different from that “imperialistic pig” that is the US? Is it because Russia is fascist now?

              Looks to me like you never cared about communist ideology, and it was always about supporting Muscovies and totalitarism.

              • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.ml
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                Nobody said Russia is communist, nor is anybody defending Russia here. People are just explaining to you that the reality is more complex than the propaganda narrative you’ve guzzled makes it out to be. The only fascists here are the ones who think that people of Ukraine should be used in a proxy war against Russia by the west. So, maybe stop projecting there.

                • takeda@kbin.social
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                  Said the guy with a thumbnail with big CCCP on his forehead.

                  Standard bullshit pretending that you care about people, dismissing that Ukrainians are fighting for their right to exist. After the war crimes committed, after Bucha and many other places, after Russia admitted to kidnapping nearly a million of Ukrainian children (textbook definition of genocide), after ICC charges for war crimes.

                  But ok, please outline exactly what should be the peace agreement, who gets what (don’t skip any details).

                  And second, please tell me how Russia, will honor that agreement, when it broke every single one going back to 90s, including Budapest Memorandum where it signed that it will respect Ukraine’s borders. The one that it broke in 2003, 2014, 2018 and 2022 (when it decided to go after the rest of Ukraine).

  • PanPuszek@reddthat.com
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    Is it only me or does Putin look really bad in this photo? I mean he seems unhealthy and in addition to that he looks like he aged 10 years in just 2. Amazing speedrun.

    • sunbeam60@lemmy.one
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      There’s a reasonable argument to be made that if Putin uses nuclear weapons in Ukraine, we use similarly sized nuclear weapons on Belarus. It’s the only non-escalatory, tit-for-tat response we have.

      • MrVilliam@lemmy.world
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        If retaliatory nuclear weapons are on the table, why would we launch them at Belarus instead of at Moscow? Not saying we should use nukes, btw. I would think that a better response to Putin nuking Ukraine would be a more precise attack against Putin himself and senior officers involved in greenlighting a nuclear attack on Ukraine. We can’t just go eye for an eye when it comes to tens of thousands of civilians. We need to ensure no more dead innocents, not give them the same number of dead innocents. Especially because people like Putin just straight up don’t give a shit about civilians, including the ones on his side. He’s a sociopath who cares only about what benefits him personally, so nuking Belarus accomplishes nothing.

        • sunbeam60@lemmy.one
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          Attacking Russia mainland or Russian leadership is an instant ticket to global nuclear annihilation.

          We need an option that shows we are not afraid to use nuclear weapons, but nor are we willing to escalate. A proportional response in the only option we have, unless we believe we’ve reached the end-game, in which case there can be no precision strike or small escalation; then go all in, launch everything now, all at once.

          So, what options do we have that mirrors what Russia might do in Ukraine. Can’t be North Korea, they are nuclear-armed themselves and would mean pulling Japan or South Korea into the exchange.

          The only ally Russia have that are semi-implicated in the war, with Russian assets that at the same time aren’t full-bloodied Russian state-troops, are Wagner in Belarus.

          So, two nukes in Ukraine from Russia = two nukes on Wagner in Belarus.

          • MrVilliam@lemmy.world
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            Why do you think nuking Russia would be unacceptable in the hypothetical situation of Russia instigating by launching a nuclear attack against Ukraine first? Why do you think that only we are responsible for being mindful of mutually assured destruction in the event that Russia is the first to use a nuclear strike in this war?

            Why do you think Putin gives a shit about Belarus? Why do you think Putin gives a shit about Wagner, a group that recently planned to march on Moscow to engage in a coup? What am I missing here?

            Do you understand that a nuclear strike on Ukraine means nuclear fallout kicked up into the atmosphere? And that wind will definitely carry that fallout into NATO airspace? And that this would be recognized as an attack upon NATO which would trigger article 5?

            Russia is making incredibly stupid decisions, but I don’t think even they are dumb enough to launch a nuke at Ukraine. At a time when they already appear to be villainous weaklings, this would just invite direct action to ensure complete destruction of Russia. So far in this campaign, they’ve only seen the results of a few allies donating weapons, ammunition, and training to Ukraine to use in defense; imagine all branches of militaries of the west directly involved in an offensive with the goal of showing the world what happens when you nuke our ally without cause.

            If they launch a nuke in this war, it should be viewed for what it is: the frustrated whimpering of a dying nation, desperately gasping for breath while its lungs fill with blood.

            • sunbeam60@lemmy.one
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              I don’t think nuking Russia is unacceptable. I think the step beyond even a single nuke landing inside Russian borders will lead to doomsday annihilation for all. So if you’re going down that route, go 110% all out. There’s no point thinking we can contain Russia’s response. They will then respond by nuking a western NATO ally, or America itself. After that we’re in, feet first. So if we go down that route I’m saying we might as well start where we end up as that will maximise our chances of having some/any population surviving the exchange.

              My suggestion to respond with a nuclear attack on Belarus is based on reciprocal response if Russia uses a nuclear weapon inside Ukraine. They bomb an ally of ours. We bomb an ally of theirs. Same yield, same count, same distance to Russian border to bring about same consequences on Russia.

              The aim in this case would be to show that we will follow Russia up the nuclear ladder but that we don’t intend to START a nuclear holocaust.