US intelligence: Russia plans to attack Ukraine early next year

The Washington Post reports that the plans will include 175,000 troops, armored forces and artillery, and is likely to be implemented in early 2022.
President Biden, who will hold a video call with Putin in the coming days, rejects Moscow's demands to prevent Kiev from joining NATO: Biden "We will make it very, very difficult" for Russia to launch an attack against Ukraine,""

 

But how? That was Soviet territory and Putin has lots of access and friends there. We have neither.

 

Besides Putin can tell Gazprom to close the valves and let Europe freeze if anyone tries to interfere.

 

US has lots of pull in Ukraine; in addition, Putin's inner circle has lots of assets in US and allies. Besides, Ukraine now has somewhat decent and motivated military to supply. There are many ways to make a price for Putin's adventurism high.

 

Russians are upset with all the US/NATO accusing NATO of carrying out provocative activities close to its borders.
I think if US displayed similar power in 2014 maybe Crimea wouldn't be lost.
So I don't think any side really wants a confirmation but the Russians are probing.
One never knows

 

Throughout the history of the Russian empire which includes the Soviets and Putin, Russia has wanted reliable buffer states between itself and Western Europe. I wonder if that's what's happening now.

 

Russia is almost encircled by Eu and NATO states. If Ukraine becomes NATO members.
After the end of the Cold War, one of NATO's main military and political goals was to encircle Russia.
But Under Putin's leadership, Moscow is pulling strings in different directions — from Ukraine to Syria what sometimes appear as gaining the upper hand over the NATO forces and European Union, Washington’s main ally.
Russia built 12 mile bridge among others which joins the Russian mainland with the Crimean Peninsula, showing Russia's long-term tactics and commitment to the region.
Beyond Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltics, Russia also has an eye on the Balkans by trying to obstruct both the EU and NATO.

 

If we accept Ukraine into NATO, can we boot Turkey? Asking for a friend.

 

qoute:
Withdrawal from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is the legal and political process whereby a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation withdraws from the North Atlantic Treaty, and thus the country in question ceases to be a member of NATO. The formal process of doing this process is stated in article XIII of the Treaty.[1] This says that any country that wants to leave must send the United States (as the depositary) a "notice of denunciation", which the U.S. would then pass on to the other countries in the alliance. After a one-year waiting period, the country that wants to leave would be out.

As of 2021, no member state has rescinded their membership
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withdrawal_from_NATO#:~:text=As%20of%202021%2C%20no%20member,to%20their%20becoming%20independent%20states.

 

Do you seriously believe this? After all those years living here?

 

What would it possibly accomplish for NATO to encircle Russia? I mean saying it was an obvious Russian scare tactic to frighten their citizens. But what would that encircling by NATO actually accomplish? I don't think Mongolia or China would ever be in NATO.

Putin has proven that the Russian neighbors are endangered by Russia not by NATO!

 

It's still a scare tactic in Russia, more than ever before. You'd think moving to the West 30 years ago would remove one from the range of their Ballistic Defense Towers (literary reference Lerner is likely to get), but alas.

NATO is a frigging treaty; real power lies in their sovereign member nations. And the plain historical fact is that after the Cold War, these nations' political goal was just to go ahead and cash that peace dividend, slashing military spending. It would have been easy to "encircle" Russia or something, while Russia was busy staying in lines for American chicken tights brought in as humanitarian aid to stave off starvation. Heck, US tried to keep Soviet Union intact, in the name of nuclear non-proliferation, and then empowered Russia by allowing it to have the "area of influence" and deal with these icky regional matters in the "near abroad". These countries in Eastern Europe who joined NATO did this on their own accord, and for a very good reason. It's one of the many things we in Ukraine failed to do in 30 years, to our detriment.

Heck yeah. From the standpoint of defending the borders, Putin invading Ukraine made his country less secure, not more. The mafia state is the only real threat in the region.

 

I'm not real familiar with the details but this is a very important point, I think. Why didn't Ukraine join NATO like their Eastern European neighbors? Were the Putin pulled puppet strings too well established in Ukraine or just too much corruption or?

 

Many reasons. For starters, it's not like NATO wanted us all that badly (undercutting Lerner's point); a lot of Russia appeasers in the bloc. Second, Ukraine is full of culturally Soviet people who watch the same TV Lerner does; joining NATO didn't even have popular support until 2014 (when it changed for obvious reasons). Also, complacency; virtually no one believed in the possibility of actual war (not even after 08.08.08). Belief in "multivectorism". Also, general corruption and incompetence, preventing us from building capability and institutions to allow us to be eligible to join.

 

What happened in 08.08.08?

I understand that we bear some responsibility for Ukraine sovereignty because it was promised if they gave up their large stockpile of nuclear weapons that were on their territory after the dissolution of the USSR. At the time it seemed like a no-brainer promise.

 

Russo-Georgian War - Wikipedia
Relatively few people who said that Ukraine will be next were completely ignored. And turned out 100% right.

Yes. The Budapest Memorandum.
"you and I remember Budapest very differently": Hawkeye in Avengers.

 

At the time, Ukraine was completely broke, and US leaned heavy on her to give up the nukes. In retrospect though, yeah, that was unwise.

 

I really appreciate the education. Thank you!

 

I was serving as a military officer at that time. I don't recall such a thing EVER being a goal of NATO. As I recall, we were primarily concerned about Soviet nukes, as well as providing safety and security, first to NATO members and then to the SSRs that broke away from the USSR.