I sure didn’t. I had elaborate ideas about how we could help the Ukrainians sink the black sea fleet on our behalf. And even then I figured we’d have to subsidize their insurance. Turns out they were just going to back down lol

Source Article (Forbes)

  • Zeppo@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    4
    ·
    1 year ago

    I have to admit that I rolled my eyes at the idea that Putin would start a war with Israel.

    • SatanicNotMessianic@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      Israel per se has fuck all to do with this, to be honest. Attacking a foreign flagged civilian vessel is a big deal, especially when the eyes of the world are upon you and you cannot declare something to have happened on the fog of war. There’s an American P-8, which is an intelligence as well as an anti-ship/anti-sub plane, covering the ship. No one knows what it’s rules of engagement are, but the implication is that it’s there to defend the civilian ship. Attacking the US plane would be an act of war. Attacking the ship may trigger the American plane to defend it by launching weapons against the attacking vessel.

      The one thing that the Russians could legitimately do is block the ship physically. They can play chicken by threatening to steer into it, but I can’t think that they’d risk widening the war at this point. No shade on Ukraine - this one is going to go down as one of the greatest victories in the history of warfare - but if they can’t make progress against Ukraine then NATO will go through them like crap through a goose.

      • Zeppo@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        1 year ago

        Sure, it’s been pretty obvious that NATO would massacre the fuck out of them. Doubtlessly Putin has known that for some time.