NATO/Poland’s official statement which was reported by the AP contradicts Zelensky in that video.
After I asked that question, I did see some more reports from the BBC starting to “flow in” providing additional information.
I think the question we’ll never get answered is whether or not the incident was accidental.
Seeing Zelenskyy come and ask for more weapons and Biden hosting him has really highlighted Biden’s ingenuity here. We are basically destroying Russia and bleeding it dry without a single American casualty. Sure it’ll cost a few hundred billion $’s but worth it right?
I’m not sure if anyone could have predicted that the Ukrainians would be able to pull it off though.
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I think it would be more accurate to say the Russians are destroying themselves. Or do you support the Putin narrative that they had no choice, and if they had no choice can you tell me what would have been the consequences to Russia of not invading..
I think our spending is more like 40B so far. Yes, it was a gamble that Ukraine could pull it off, but the spending has also been very incremental. It’s a great outcome for the US.
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I’m happy that we are sending military hardware and information to Ukraine. I’m delighted that the Ukrainians are degrading the Russian military and also Russian confidence.
I hope that the killing and the immense property destruction eventually stop. After that, the rebuilding will take a decade and cost a trillion US dollars. I expect that Putin is doing this calculation: “One missile that costs me C will destroy a power plant that will cost 100 x C to rebuild. In the long run, the West will argue endlessly about who should pay to rebuild. I will sit here and watch them fall apart.”
This problem is going to be with us for a long time.
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ITA. It costs much more to build than destroy. Russia will also lose proportionally fewer persons than Ukraine.
There won’t be a way to have Russia pay for the destruction. It will be a big net loss for the West.
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One big argument will be about using frozen Russian assets to fund the rebuild. There’s a big pot of $ there, but seizing it for other purposes will be complicated under international law.
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That is not always the case if you believe these figures::
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It would be awesome if the in ‘good’ guys were completely open, honest, and fair but that’s never the case.
What was kind of? surprising to me is that the US publicly doubted the story soon after it came out. We might have allowed the rumor to spread, or we might have privately stopped it sooner.
Not always the case, but definitely the case in aggregate.
I would not be say definitiely. Cost estimates for Russia are all over the board, especially if you include the costs that sanctions are imposing on the economy. I do not believe the figure given here but if the daily cost is about 1.5 billion then its about equal on both sides.
I think the goal was to do whatever was necessary to avoid the situation escalating to WW3.
By publicly casting doubt on the story, they quickly reduced the chance it would blow out of control.
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Well we are more able to absorb that than Russia. Reminiscent of the Star Wars program though… victory by spending money at a rate that bleeds the Russians dry.
Time flies when you’re having fun .
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Good write up, IMO, on this particular . . . illustration . . .
According to the article, the farthest away the clock has ever been is 17 minutes to midnight.
Feels like innumeracy. inchronicity?
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I dunno, what is “one day” supposed to be?
I’d say -vaguely- that we have been very close to “midnight” ever since we made thousands of nukes.
If I can recall, I think there was more concern/paranoia about nuclear war in the mid-1980’s, I mean Sting even wrote a song about it (Russians). So maybe then we were at 8pm then. My best guess right now is we’re at 6pm now.
Without Putin it could be 3pm.