On February 4th around 17:07 I wrote this (in Dutch because the match was here): "Voordat Rusland en Oekraïne vechten op de Oost-Europees Laagland (hopelijk niet), strijden ze nu bij de FUTSAL EURO 2022 halve finale." and this menas: Before Russia and Ukraine battle each other in the East European Plain (I hope not), they fight now in the semi-finals of the Futsal EURO 2022.
Later on the 20th, wrote an additional comment about Putin and Ukraine that said, among other things:
This is so much alike 8 years ago, when there were no Russian troops in Crimea and Crimea was just looking for independence/sovereignty, but not really (it was a Russian plan all along).
All the pieces are set and all conditions are there to "justify" a Russian intervention. With the excuse of an attack on its troops or due to violence against Russians or whatever in the East of Ukraine, they will intervene.
(...)
What happens next depends on the reactions of the rest of the World. Russia can be severely impacted and that can diminish support for Putin.(...)8 years ago there were already many people in the West believing Russia had rights to take Crimea. Some will again think Russia is in its right and only reacting to provocations/moves by others.
The next day, Putin recognised the 2 self-proclaimed republics in the Donbas, making at the same time a lot of statements about Ukraine not being a real nation and the need to correct the mistake that came with the end of the Soviet Union, and I got this off my chest (and there was an interesting debate in the comments that maybe deserve its own dissertation):
It's done. Now all (the) pieces are in place. The 2 regions are recognised, Russian troops will enter to "protect them from Ukrainian aggression" and only question now is where it stops?
We were just starting to get back to normal...
Fuck this shit!
When the Cold War ended and after some years of the world becoming smaller and the people getting closer, I never thought that the conventional war of petty interests would return to Europe. Always thought the next big thing would be a big ideology war triggered by religion or China would be somehow the big expansionist.
But no, again in Europe, triggered mostly by a leader that felt a previous loss (USSR defeat at the Cold War) needed to be corrected and dreams of "restoring" the former glory of a gone "empire".
In a way not that surprising that this is repeating now. This generation that is still in power and grew up in the "older days" cannot really accept the world was changing and unfortunately will manage to fuck it all before leaving us.
As I said before, Ukraine is the first real action (before they were still pretending to be doing something else). Let's see where we are going next (I still hope this can have a positive global outcome in the end, but the problem is the price we pay until then).
In addition to the other advances and military deployments, I want to highlight the attack by the airborne troops (performed by the VDV, a separate branch of the Russian Armed Forces) at the Hostomel airport (the home base of Antonov).
I have now no doubts that Ukrainians managed to foil the Russian plans to take Hostomel Airport and use it as a forward base to airlift troops and equipment for the attack on Kyiv. That is the reason why columns of Russian troops are moving South from Chernobyl (West of the Dnipro river) and from the area of Chernihiv (East of the Dnipro).
I'm certain the goal of the "special military operation", as they called it, is to overthrow Ukrainian government and set up a puppet with permanent Russian military bases in the territory, hence bordering NATO countries. And I'm also convinced that Putin/Russia won't stop with Ukraine whatever their goal is. He also has unfinished business in Transnistria (Moldova) and that's just around the corner.
A final remark: if the Gulf War of 90-91 was the television war, this battle (it doesn't seem it will last very long to be a "war") is the Internet and Smartphone war, because most of images and actually reports come way faster from regular citizen filming with their phones and sharing in social media
To note that this is not the first case of this type of war coverage, since in Syria many civilians have been doing it since the start, but now all the rest of the World is paying attention and realising how close we all can be to the action, almost "through the eyes" of the witnesses.
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