| ▲ | belter 4 hours ago |
| Russia has already carried out chemical attacks on UK soil, used radioactive poisoning in London, sabotaged rail infrastructure in Poland, and launched cyberattacks against German air traffic control.[1] The Associated Press has documented 59 Russian hybrid operations across Europe. A systematic campaign of intimidation, sabotage, and violence:
https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-europe-hybrid-... Russia supplied the Buk missile system that shot down MH17, killing 298 civilians, most of them Europeans. Putin eliminates political opponents, like Alexei Navalny, who died in custody days before a possible release. European leaders may be passive and slow, but what is making the situation truly dangerous, is the dictator-jealousy fueled encouragement and indulgence of the current U.S. administration, and all its sycophants, which got to the point of publicly applauding a dictator on U.S. soil. That behavior legitimizes aggression, emboldens Moscow, and directly undermines European security, and is making thinks really, really, sketchy right now. Germany accuses Russia of air traffic control cyber-attack:
[1] - https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgrrnylzzyo |
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| ▲ | type0 an hour ago | parent | next [-] |
| That's why I think Putin won't use nukes but would just load chemical weapons on drones to attack European cities and blame it on some terrorist organization. Trump might even support him in claiming that Russia is innocent and NATO shouldn't be involved. They already tested it on Poland with empty drones and said Russia didn't send any drones. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Russian_drone_incursion_i... |
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| ▲ | mmooss an hour ago | parent | next [-] | | > I think Putin won't use nukes Any reasonable planning requires looking at the scenario your action creates - the range of outcomes. The range certainly includes Putin using nuclear weapons (which is part of Russia's military doctrine - see 'escalate to deescalate'). That needs to be part of your plan. | | |
| ▲ | JumpCrisscross an hour ago | parent [-] | | > range certainly includes Putin using nuclear weapons (which is part of Russia's military doctrine - see 'escalate to deescalate'). That needs to be part of your plan If we had acted decisively at the beginning of the Ukraine war, the risk of nuclear war would be lower today. Appeasement can work. But it can also increase risks. In this case, giving into a bully invites escalation itself, which increases the chances of a fuckup (e.g. a misfired drone taking out an early-warning radar) which legitimately calls for nuclear escalation. |
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| ▲ | actionfromafar an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Checks out. Trump would drool at the thought of cutting up not only Ukraine between him and Russia, but the rest of Europe too. | | |
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| ▲ | derbOac 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > what is making the situation truly dangerous, is the dictator-jealousy fueled encouragement and indulgence of the current U.S. administration, and all its sycophants, which got to the point of publicly applauding a dictator on U.S. soil. I personally think there's a more direct link between the US administration and Russia, in line with the rest of your points. I think it's more than "dictator-jealousy fueled encouragement", although what that "more" is I'm not entirely sure, and I'm not sure the differences between the possibilities matters in the end. I really think it's hard not to read [about] Foundations of Geopolitics and the history of Viktor Yanukovych, the ties between the latter and Trump, and not conclude Russia's tendrils in the US, England, and elsewhere are far deeper than is generally acknowledged in the press. I lost a lot of trust in most media to cover this issue appropriately when people in the UK started mysteriously dying and zipping themselves in body bags, and the coverage was a collective shrug. Why they would report something like that and then with a straight face conclude an article with "police say there's no evidence of foul play" is beyond me. But then again how the Mueller investigation got spun as an exoneration is also beyond me as well. I know it's often seen as dismissive or shallow to blame the media for things, but I really do place a huge proportion of the blame for our current mess, at least in the US, on news outlets and media soft-pedaling what's been happening for the last 10 years. A lot of what people trust became propaganda, and a lot of the rest of it chased that audience around for clicks. |
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| ▲ | azalemeth 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Regarding the spy in a bag -- the person involved was a GCHQ mathematician seconded to the SIS and studying Russia, whose "naked, decomposing remains were found in the bath of the main bedroom's en-suite bathroom, inside a red sports bag that was padlocked from the outside, with the keys inside the bag. [...] Inconclusive fragments of DNA components from at least two other individuals were found on the bag. A forensic examination of Williams's flat has concluded that there was no sign of forced entry or of DNA that pointed to a third party present at the time of his death. Scotland Yard's inquiry also found no evidence of Williams's fingerprints on the padlock of the bag or the rim of the bath, which the coroner said supported her assertion of "third-party involvement" in the death. Metropolitan Police deputy assistant commissioner Martin Hewitt said it was theoretically possible for Williams to lower himself into the bag without touching the rim of the bath. A key to the padlock was inside the bag, underneath his body"
(See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Gareth_Williams) It's absolutely mad, but remember this happened in 2010 -- before Russia did many of those bad things you mention. It wouldn't surprise me if a combination of political pressure and police incompetence made this go away. | |
| ▲ | anonymars an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I'm going to link this one again because I think it flew below the proverbial radar The exhibits are short and worth looking at https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/justice-department-d... | |
| ▲ | belter 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Those connections go back as far as 2016... But does it matter? 77 million Americans knowingly voted a convicted felon and court adjudicated sexual assaulter back into the presidency instead of a jail cell. From those, about 40 million were women, fully aware that a jury found him liable for sexual assault, and that multiple judges affirmed the verdict. The majority of Americans saw criminality, sexual violence, and contempt for the law and decided that was acceptable leadership. :-)) "Kushner Companies and Russian individuals exchanged suspicious money transfers at the height of the 2016 race, ex-Deutsche Bank employee says" - https://www.businessinsider.com/jared-kushner-russia-2016-mo... | | |
| ▲ | drivebyhooting an hour ago | parent [-] | | Next election please let the Democratic Party campaign on tangible policies, not just ad hominem - even if true. | | |
| ▲ | metadope 7 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | I respectfully suggest a future campaign slogan that sets a simple yet high policy bar: make America good again. Let that be the prism through which all future political action is seen. Let's be real. Let's be good. Let's strive to eliminate and replace this farcical hyperbole, self-agrandizement, this pyramid scheme of a pretense at government. Let's have some confidence and ambition: work to restore a real balance of power between our three branches. There is so much we could do in the near and long term if we just set out sights on a simple, positive goal. We may never be great again. Maybe we never were. But we can be good. | |
| ▲ | lovich an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Fuck that, the American people have shown they do not care about nerds citing policies. They care about narratives. Run with the ad Homs if that’s the narrative needed to win, then use the power to implement policy. Anything less is bringing a book to a gun fight |
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| ▲ | an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
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| ▲ | MaxPock 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| Europe believes that Russia is doing all sorts of bad things and there's also the belief that Moscow plans to invade the EU . Isn't the logical action for EU to launch massive pre-emptive strikes on this big bad country that hates the western way of life ? |
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| ▲ | eptcyka 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I don’t believe the leadership sees Russia as an existential threat in Brussels. Baltics and Poland see it differently. A pre-emptive strike would be expensive and immediately retcon into making Putin be the good guy - he’s long said NATO is the aggressor. Best to make invading EU to be too expensive to be worth it. I think the bigger risk currently that Europe faces is the low and mid level corruption where Russian agents extend their tendrils into government structures in EU. | | |
| ▲ | TheOtherHobbes 3 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | This has already happened. Just as in the US, all of the far-right "movements" in the EU are Russian fronts. The two biggest targets are the UK and France, because both have an independent nuclear deterrent. If those are captured by puppets, expect nuclear explosions over European capitals. This is not hyperbole. Russian government insiders have made it absolutely, unambiguously clear that Europe must be "crushed." As a direct quote. The real tragedy is oligarch complicity. Oligarchs and aristocrats in the US, UK, and EU have decided they have more in common with their Russian counterparts than with the native populations of their respective countries. | | |
| ▲ | gnerd00 9 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | How many armies in the world, have ever had a person in uniform demand that "the other army must be crushed" ? ok, is there any army that did not say that, to each other, or to an audience? Get a grip on the invective and do not blabber! | |
| ▲ | actionfromafar an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | Aristocrats pretty much always believed that. |
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| ▲ | lugu 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > making Putin be the good guy Come on. Who cares what he pretend? > Best to make invading EU to be too expensive to be worth it. How do you propose to estimate how much it is worth doing it? IMO, it is best is to make the kremlin government collapse by all mean necessary. Including sabotage, assassination, propaganda, confiscation, corruption/trahison. And preemptive strike if needs to be. |
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| ▲ | TulliusCicero 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Isn't the logical action for EU to launch massive pre-emptive strikes To be clear, strikes wouldn't be "pre-emptive", Russia is already in a war, and it's entirely allowed for any nation to join the side of Ukraine. None of the rules of war prevent helping a friendly country by joining the fight. | | | |
| ▲ | kspacewalk2 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It's not about "hating the western way of life" or any such silliness. They can hate whatever they want within their internationally recognized borders. War is best prevented by robust deterrents. When it comes to belligerent fascist regimes who want to see how far you can be pushed, not responding to provocations and aggression forcefully makes larger-scale war more likely in the future. | |
| ▲ | TulliusCicero 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The logical thing to do is respond proportionally: if the ships are deliberately damaging property, seize the ships, and imprison the offenders. | | |
| ▲ | lovich an hour ago | parent [-] | | Responding proportionally means you are always the one on the defensive and your opponent gets to decide the course of the conflict. There should be a tit for tat response but the tit needs to be much larger than the tat to create the incentive for no longer attacking |
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| ▲ | luke5441 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | We have functional democracies here. You'd have to convince the population this is the right course of action and then the politicians will do it. Good luck with that, though. | |
| ▲ | ForHackernews 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | No, pre-emptively starting another war is not a good idea. But yes, the West should work hard to make sure their enemy loses the war it has already started. | |
| ▲ | belter 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Isn't the logical action for EU to launch massive pre-emptive strikes on this big bad country that hates the western way of life ? Depending on the days, the priority changes, between Russia or attacking the US first, maybe with the help from Canada :-)) You have to deal with one threat at a time, and it seems the fight against chlorinated chicken will take priority for now... :-) https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2025/12/17/trump-demands... |
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