HACKER Q&A
📣 dudus

What is going on in Ukraine?


Why is Russia invading Ukraine?

What should other countries do about it?

What's China position in all this?

Economic impact in Europe and America?

Is the USA going to war?


  👤 MaxPengwing Accepted Answer ✓
Why is Russia Invading Ukraine? - Many reasons, but I think this book and it's author have had a great influence on the decisions made by the Russian ruling class for the past 20 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foundations_of_Geopolitics

What Should Other Countries do about it? - Accept immigrants, sanction, and do everything to deescalate to stay away from Nuclear war to make sure that under no circumstances Russia is to take the Sulwaki Gap or the Baltic, Sweden and Finland will be next. https://cepa.org/cepa_files/2018-CEPA-report-Securing_The_Su...

What is chinas position in all of this? - Tentatively a Russian apologist. China has a huge land border with Russia. Neither trust each other very much. If Russia can take Ukraine, then China might use the opportunity to take Taiwan, it's not super likely but not outside the realm of possibility. Mostly China don't want the worlds logistics chains to be fubared with again. A war in Europe might drive up the cost of raw materials and that is not entirely in Chinas favor.

Economic Impact in Europe? - Nord stream is now an abject failure and a no go. Germany have to reevaluate starting up their nuclear reactors or the european energy crisis will get worse.

American Impact? Cost of owning a car will become high as the global. oil price rises, this happens every time a major war starts. Incidently Russia tend to start some kind of war everytime the oilprice dips under a certain amount, i think it's around 40-45 USD per barrel Brent.

Is the USA Going to War? - If Russia decides to move to the Suwlaki gap, then yes most certainly the NATO paragraph 5 will be activated and the USA as a NATO founder will ahve to go to war.


👤 cable2600
Don't trust HN on this. Read the BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-56720589

HN is for tech, not geopolitics.


👤 dereg
I’ve been trying to devour as many lectures about the general situation there as possible and I think I’d start here:

[Why is Ukraine the West’s Fault?]( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4)

Most other lectures I’ve seen have been reactionary to news of late, whereas this is hauntingly prescient.


👤 wnkrshm
My pretty unfounded opinions on this:

Because it's now or never, while there still is pro-Russian separatism and the Ukrainian military hasn't become even stronger.

Coordinate with China to exert pressure.

They don't want sanctions because it's bad for global business.

Living costs go up.

No, maybe (hopefully?) if the Baltic states get treated the same after Ukraine.


👤 Pinegulf
Why is this flagged? I don't see bias in questions. Maybe out of scope of HN?

👤 WinDoctor

👤 creato
Trusting anyone on HN or any other social media to answer some of these questions for you is silly.

👤 crate_barre
Putin is trying to normalize economic relations with the EU. I believe Russia feels like they have been treated like a malicious threat, a necessary evil that EU has been ‘tolerating’ due to energy needs. This is Putin saying, ‘ok we’re so evil, let me show you evil’.

They just want to be treated like a legitimate energy partner to Europe and not like a rascal that governments need to find some alternative solution for.

The outcome they seek is to wipe the table clean of negative attitudes, scale back of all sanctions, and just general good-faith energy deals without being seen as the worst thing ever.

Putin:

You need energy, we have energy, we’ll sell it to you. Why are you trying to subvert a simple economic exchange by co-opting Ukraine into NATO and also back dealing alternative pipeline projects? What is so bad about this basic arrangement? You think we are some old Soviet Cold War threat? Ok, let me show you the old Cold War Soviet threat. How come you don’t come fight us? Because we are not the Soviet Union and you know that.

That’s all it is. That’s why no one sensible can figure out the rational for any of this, because it really is a respect thing.


👤 taneliv
One immediate economic impact seems to be that MOEX Russian index https://www.moex.com/en/ is down currently 29.4% from yesterday. Sorry, 30.5% now. Anyway, it updates every minute.

Please instead refer to the news sources to the level you trust them, not comments from random people like me, who might or might not be part of some misinformation campaign (whether consciously or not).