shame to admit, I wasn't able to predict the start of the war even though I was in Russia at that time. It's was always some news on the periphery of my brain. At somepoint there were news about the russian army "stopping their maneuvering" and I thought "ah, this was a scare tactic after all, no one is insane to start a war"
I guess in Russia they control the news. In the UK there was quite a lot of Russia about to invade stuff in the news. They even had the date down pretty much as it was assumed Putin was waiting for the end of the winter olympics so as to not annoy the Chinese.
I find it increddible, that almost the whole personal that allowed putin to wage this war, is still in some ways in office and power in europe. What happened to disgraced figures stepping back, to give the new and capable a chance to recover ? Steinmeier, Van der Leyen, the posts change and become more honorific, but with such a legacy of ashes, who would want to stay at the press conference?
How would you approach preventing a nuclear armed state from invading their neighbor?
The only lever they (EU and member states) had was economic, there were zero diplomatic or military options. Russia is essentially a nuclear-armed mafia-owned gas station, so not buying NG would’ve helped a bits
Preventing them from invading doesn’t really seem possible once you account for nuclear weapons.
I think it's a shame that the west wasn't more forceful to stop Putin invading. I mean the US, UK and Russia signed the Budapest Memorandum when Ukraine gave up its nukes, agreeing to respect the borders. It would have been quite reasonable for the USAF/RAF to threaten to take out invading troops and maybe have saved thousands of lives.
tryauuum|3 days ago
tim333|2 days ago
indubioprorubik|3 days ago
[Link is in german] https://schmid.welt.de/2026/02/25/braucht-deutschland-einen-...
quickthrowman|3 days ago
How would you approach preventing a nuclear armed state from invading their neighbor?
The only lever they (EU and member states) had was economic, there were zero diplomatic or military options. Russia is essentially a nuclear-armed mafia-owned gas station, so not buying NG would’ve helped a bits
Preventing them from invading doesn’t really seem possible once you account for nuclear weapons.
ahartmetz|3 days ago
I have zero sympathy for von der Leyen, by the way. The only thing that she's good at is failing upwards.
Gepsens|2 days ago
tim333|2 days ago
aaron695|3 days ago
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