Is anyone else genuinely scared that this is the start of WW3?

I would argue that you're getting sucked into the news cycle a bit more than is probably healthy, if you're feeling real anxiety.

Maybe turn off the news for a few days to relax? It may seem like Very Important Things are happening right now, but honestly, as someone who does watch the news pretty obsessively, you can construe basically anything into being Very Important.

All of the most likely outcomes for what's happening in Ukraine are not impactful to you in any real way. The very unlikely outcomes are more impactful, but specifically the odds of a nuclear war is vanishingly small. Not zero, and meaningfully larger than a week ago, but still infinitesimally small.

Take a walk outside, pet your dog/cat, hug a loved one, watch a funny movie. That's what I do when I get really wrapped up in the news cycle. :)

We're all going to die in 40-60 years anyway, hardly any of this matters.

I felt the same way over the first two days, and still do to an extent, but somewhat found a way out.

We live in pretty much central Europe. My wife is Ukrainian and that language is one of three commonly spoken in our household. As I'm not from Europe either, I feel like I have integrated quite a lot into the Ukrainian community. We have family and friends directly imperilled by the war.

After "doom scrolling" through various Telegram groups for the first couple of days, I'm now actually doing something. The local Ukrainian community is collecting food and medicines. These will be driven to the border and used to assist arriving refugees. I'm talking to local people and businesses about donations. I'm signed up to be a driver in the next days.

I don't want to look back in five years time and realise all I did was follow events online, when I have a genuine opportunity to help people. Our son is also old enough to understand what's happening to his family (grandmother, cousins etc). I'd like him to look back in later years and realise his father did something to try and make a difference.

My point is, if you can't log off and checkout as has been very validly suggested by other people on this thread, at least try to find a way to be involved and assist. Even if you're the other side of the world, contact your local Ukrainian community group and see what they need in terms of assistance.

I think he's bluffing with the nukes. He knows that if he launched one, 3-4 other countries would launch theirs at him. It's also been made exceedingly clear that the moment the Russian army sets foot outside of Ukraine, the full weight of the western world will come crashing down on it. His forces are struggling enough fighting just Ukraine, whose army is dramatically smaller and less-equipped. I don't think they could hope to take on the U.S. army, much less the entire rest of Europe, especially if still meeting resistance in Ukraine. And I don't think China wants to get involved.

I would be worried about Ukraine. I'm not really worried about this spreading to the rest of the world.

Same here, living in Berlin and the most frigthend signal was the move from Germany to up their budget for military operations. No one seems to recognize what a massive shift this is. Something you would just do if immediate and long-term danger is next door. Means, they see something which is definetely not in the news.

My partner is not from Germany and we are considering leaving the EU for now to sit this one out. At least go to a country where you can drive away and look for shelter in case of a radioactive blast.

It's difficult, since the few who forsee things stay alive, but if you actually prepare and nothing happens, you look dumb as fuck. I don't know what to do. If you don't have family and the means, look for a smaller EU island or maybe even the US or Canada for 6 months and work from there. At least there, you can find natural resources and water to survive.

Keep the MOEX tab open and see how hard Russia is getting hit in a few hours or all next week: https://tradingeconomics.com/russia/stock-market

With these sanctions, Putin might actually have nothing left but send a warning shot. He can't go back to his country, trying and maybe failed to invade a neighbour, just to return empty handed and with the stock market close to 0, inflation and the Rubel basically worthless.

EDIT: I think this goes into the wrong direction: https://www.euronews.com/2022/02/27/ukraine-is-one-of-us-and...

So Putin is so angry and feels threatend that he wants to overthrough Ukraine, and the answer is to make them a member of the EU? This screams like more aggressives answers from Putin. I personally expect a smaller nuclear warning shot over the ocean from Putin next week.

- "Am I the only person affected similarly by events? How else have you been coping with it all?"

No one successfully coping is going to be clicking on a 'WW3' thread in HN's 'new' queue and telling you about how they're successfully coping.

If it is the start of WWIII, just goes to show how stupid the rationale for the end of the world will be.

I mean, in the whole buildup to the Ukraine invasion, I just keep thinking "what is the purpose of this?" I've read tons of background articles about the Russia/Ukraine conflict, and I have a pretty good understanding of Russian-Ukrainian history that is not often presented in Western media (e.g. the history of Crimea in the 20th century). But literally none of that points to a logical reason for this invasion, of this scope, now:

1. Russia is upset about the expansion of NATO. A very fair point, but the last expansion of Nato that Russia really had a reason to be mad about happened in 2004. Ukraine isn't really any closer to being a NATO member now than 10 years ago.

2. Protection of separatists in the Donbas region. Even if you did buy all of the Russian propaganda about what's going on in Donbas, in that case I could at least see an argument for annexing Luhansk and Donetsk, but not invading the whole country.

3. Keeping Ukraine within the Russian "sphere of influence". Again, I can understand the rationale for Russia wanting to do this, but I see invasion as extremely counterproductive to that goal.

Honestly, I see a ton of parallels with the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. The invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11 at least made sense to me from the perspective of having a purpose; I remember the rush to war in Iraq in 2003 and the whole thing just seemed really stupid to me, like "well, we attacked one country, we're not done yet, so we have to find another country to invade." Similarly, while perhaps an unpopular viewpoint in the West, I understood the rationale behind annexing Crimea, but the invasion of Ukraine just leads me to believe "all outcomes will be bad, for Russia".

It's just good to remember that many times war happens for really, really dumb reasons.

I'm glued to the news and I need to put it down, convince myself that the world won't end tomorrow, and get back to work.

I don't believe you need to convince yourself of anything other than one should not stress over things they can not control. If ICBM's are the eventuality then survivors will all have to adapt, improvise and overcome as best they can. That would affect everyone and you would not be alone.

In my opinion people should only concern themselves with that which they can control like building up a supply of water, food, hygiene products, medical supplies, armaments, portable battery/solar backup, sleeping bags, blankets, fuel, cash, LED lighting and some good books. Help your family do the same. Create contingency plans with your family ahead of time and store important documents and family heirlooms somewhere safe. That can keep the mind occupied doing something useful and create a feeling of accomplishment.

I think he'll be assasinated by his comrades way before situation escalates to the level of nuclear buttons.

He assured his oligarchs that Russia is a part of global economy.

And global economy is currently in the process of excluding Russia at unprecedented pace.

The world just needs to convince Russian oligarchs that it won't buy a single drop of Russian oil until there's Putin's body floating in it.

Whether it is or it isn't, individually we're powerless to change anything. Don't worry about things you can't change.

I live in Norway, we have been one of the few NATO countries with borders to russia and would likely be hit by nukes from both sides if the shit hits the fan.

But personally I think there are enough people high up in the russian government that do not want to annihilate the world to save the face of one man to prevent something like that.

So while it is a concern I think that is an unlikely outcome.

Ukraine was supposed to be low-hanging fruit. Should it turn into a prolonged and costly slog I don't think we will have to worry about Russia taking on the likes of NATO any time soon. Not only are the arms and munitions flowing in to the resistance but undoubtedly numerous "advisors" with special "talents" are scampering about as well. And Russia will deserve every bit of it...

I think it's wise to prepare and keep an eye on the news to know when to trigger your fight (or flight) plan. Panicking won't help.

As far as I'm concerned, it has reinforced my priorities, altered them slightly too. I think it's a good opportunity to reassess your objectives in life, if anything.

Anyway, off to bed early today, so I have more time to do what matters to me tomorrow. Can't wait to see my favourite muddy poney again :)

Yes. Not necessarily a nuclear war. A wider conventional war is all too possible.

Poland could easily be drawn into this war by accident. Military supplies are being shipped into Ukraine from Poland and Germany. Soon, from the entire EU. Russian attempts to stop those might spill over the border into Poland, possibly by accident. An air attack overrunning the Polish border and being shot down by the Polish air force could happen very easily.

Poland is a NATO country. An attack on Poland within its borders activates NATO's mutual defense agreement.

Review how WWI started.

No, let's be honest, rich West won't go into (nuclear) war with Russia over poor Ukraine which does not have gas/oil (see previous US invasions) and is neither NATO/EU member. As it was proven numerous times West can't agree even on strict sanctions, so to think they would do anything which could potentially lead to direct war with Russia is pure sci-fi. They would Putin take whole Ukraine, Moldova and other former soviet (non NATO) countries before antyhing close to war would happen, there is still plenty of countries to take before stakes are higher.

I highly recommend watching Norwegian TV show Occupied which I finished just days ago (3rd season not worth anymore), which describes pretty accurately European politics and what would happen if Russians "attacked" rich country.

But yeah, as fan of Threads (1984) I thought about nearest shelter, whether I would risk our own building nuclear shelter which is quite deep or try somehow put whole family in our small basement (I think no direct window outside) or hide in our top floor concrete apartment in case of attack, but in the end especially in case of nuclear attack seems quite pointless trying to hide from it. I wish I would have basement as my father (living in west of Slovakia) which is pretty huge like living room in building with 50+ cm thick walls, so all you need to do is cover the windows.

I'm not scared but I'm alarmed that this is even a remote possibility. A few months ago the sheer idea that we would see an old school invasion by a major power in Europe would have seemed impossible to me. I never contemplated that this was possible in the current world order yet here we are. Not that it could never happen again, but not now or in the foreseeable future. So we were very wrong about this collectively, what other delusions about what is possible are we harbouring?

I am very concerned about Putin's state of mind. This does not appear to be a rational course of action so he's either badly miscalculated, or worse, he's living in an alternate reality. Furthermore, because nukes are part of the equation we must make Putin feel that there is a path to de-escalation. If he gets backed into a corner, and feels like he can't retreat, this could become existential for all of us. I think it's a fairly remote possibility but we cannot rule out the use of WMDs. Either battlefield nukes and chemical weapons in Ukraine or, utter worst case, full blown nuclear war against the West if we confront him head on.

I don't want go be alarmist, the last point is pretty unlikely at this point, but there must be an escape hatch for Putin here. However, if he feels that despite whatever ways out we give him he can't back down as it would end his regime, that could be a worst case scenario. We can't control the political situation in Russia. Could he become "all in" at this point?

WW3 will require the involvement of atleast China and USA and then these countries pull in their allies because the battle ground is Eurasia. So countries like Germany, France, England, India because of resources and man power. At this point, the world is too fragile to afford an all-out war. One hidden agenda of war is to increase debt. US already has the reason for it, COVID. EU is sensible enough to not nuke it's own economy at this time. It's just resources at stake, Fossil fuels and earth resources which Russia controls but there are alternatives to it.

China could get into the war, it may even be in it's interest, fend of US and open doors for it's invasion in Taiwan because US/EU both support Taiwan. India and Pakistan getting in because then India will need to protect it's borders.

There is a very delicate balance between countries which we just can't afford to break. If that happens, UN goes into dumps and then it will be all Nuclear without any regards because at that point earth will have given up. So no more land to rule.

None of the above is based on facts, current political status, secret hidden families or anything. Just a random thought.

Well... You have had those fears for at most four days. At the same time, millions of people around the world has had to live with those fears constantly for years. Many have had their homes bombed and their relatives killed. Some of those have fled to Europe and the US because they want what we have; freedom, security, and dignity. They have not come to steal what we have, but to share it with us.

We have not been treating them nice. We have labelled them as security threats or "demographic" threats and turned them away at our borders. In many cases we have armed the same regimes that have brutalized them and branded those who fought back "terrorists". Just days before the Russian invasion popular politicians were screaming about how refugees had "destroyed" my country.

I hope if anything good comes out of this crisis people would learn how to sympathize with others. People who have felt the threat and fears themselves maybe better understand the fears of those who have fled their homes, regardless of skin color, eye color or religion?

With COVID improving I thought I’d finally leave my job and travel for a bit as I figure out what I’m doing in life but at the moment I’m monitoring the situation in Ukraine to understand whether quitting my job and traveling is the right choice.

My sister worries about me being unemployed in my home country and getting drafted.

Any fellow almost about to quit people? Is this stopping you?

Previous pertinent remarks by me if anyone desperately needs to know for some reason:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19843507

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22619932

I try not to worry about things which I have no control over. If I lived in Ukraine, I would either leave immediately or have clear plans to enact at certain escalation points. I don’t see why this conflict would escalate beyond Ukraine’s borders. The west would need to poke the bear, but that looks unlikely based on the response so far.

It's always good to have a plan and be prepared in case of emergencies, but OP needs to think about the business model of the news industry and take that into account before panicking.

The news business is in the business of shilling fear-porn and outrage-porn because those are the types of emotions that go viral fastest and get them the most clicks and shares. This is probably why you're glued to the screen.

Not to say that Russia and Ukraine aren't big and important issues, particularly to the people caught in the middle, but this is only globe-shattering if the media brainwashes enough people into panicking about it. Russia has had plenty of dumb conflicts in recent years. If you weren't panicking about Georgia in 2008 or Ukraine in 2014, you shouldn't be absolutely hyperventilating about Ukraine now. Yes, it's a serious issue, but please don't succumb to fear porn and panic.

What happens if China and Russia form a NATO-esq agreement while Russia takes old USSR countries and China takes Taiwan?

I'm in the same boat. I genuinely feel like the west and russia are in more danger than at almost any point in the cold war.

The problem is that Russia's nuclear doctrine was 'updated' to use 'tactical nukes' if they are threatened by conventional NATO forces. That's supposed to be in the situation where there's a NATO tank column rolling towards Moscow, but it's easy to see how lines could get blurred.

This creates a really plausible chain of events where NATO crosses a red line that was assumed to be bluff, then ends up getting dragged into a conventional NATO-vs-Russia conflict which leads to a nuclear exchange.

There is a silver lining to this scenario: you know the conditions in which Russia would use nukes: i.e. if they felt existentially threatened by NATO forces. That would give everybody a few days of warning in which you can evacuate.

There will be a coup in Russia before the nukes fly

Thunder sounds. Australians assembling sandbags against their walls and doors for flash flooding. Snakes swimming down the road.

Yes, as Australians we’re deeply concerned that Russia may eventually nuke us because they want our country.

I found an article about Russia's military logistics problems very reassuring. https://warontherocks.com/2021/11/feeding-the-bear-a-closer-...

The author claims that Russia would be very slow to go beyond the borders of the former USSR because (1) Russia's forces are completely reliant on railroads and (2) the railroads in former-soviet states are a different track width from elsewhere in Europe.

We should be more sceptical about news more and more. This is what brings chaos in public. Last two years was perfect example. Scared public is ideal ground for new rules and simple solutions.

People thought cooler heads would prevail leading up to the Cuban missile crisis, "nuclear war isn't rational". It didn't play out that way and instead we came wayyy too close.

A few world leaders have a button. If any of them press it, the world ends. Our job is to make sure they don't. Probably makes sense to get rid of the button too...

It's rational to be worried about such a situation.

There are two issues here:

1. The threat of war

2. Anxiety about the threat of war

The first relates to the actual facts of the situation, whereas the second relates to your thoughts and feelings about it. The range of answers in this thread should tell you that different people can have different reactions to the same events. This should give you the idea that your reactions could be changed. After all "what one man can do, another can do"

The key to understanding anxiety is to realise that it involves thought-looping -- ruminating on the same negative ideas in an escalating spiral. The answer to overcoming anxiety is to find a way to break out of the loop. The actual thoughts themselves are not as interesting as you think they are. You are caught on your thoughts and feelings.

If you have the time, a great way to overcome anxiety is to do a sort of body-scan meditation.

Lie on the floor with a book under the back of your head for a little support, knees up or flat to the ground as you prefer. Pick an area of your body that feels tense, stiff, painful or just uncomfortable. Focus your attention on the area for as long as possible. The feelings there may start to change. If it starts to feel relaxed, move to the next most tense area.

The aim of the exercise is to focus your attention on the internal muscular sensations of your body, rather than your thoughts. If you aren't used to relaxing, you may find that this increases your anxiety at first, but that is all part of the response. If you can keep on returning your thoughts to whatever muscular sensations you are aware of, over and over for half an hour, you will find yourself becoming much more relaxed. Once you are relaxed, you will find that anxiety doesn't really make sense anymore.

People don't just respnd anxiously to stressful events out of the blue. I bet this isn't the first time in your life you have found something overwhelming and it has taken over your mind. Did you feel in control of your life before this started, or were you already on edge? Did you feel like you were succeeding, like all your relationships were going well?

These things tend to come in clusters. People who are happy and relaxed are not easily perturbed by events that don't immediately affect them.

The threat is real, and I wouldn't like to say what the probabilities of different outcomes are. I'm worried, but then I know that a part of me just enjoys worrying a bit. I easily get anxious if I let myself, but I have learned to control it with the technique I outlined above.

Yeah maybe. Better than 0.1%, but there's nothing you can do except become a prepper and live out in the woods with a starlink dish and a solar panel and pretend to get some work done remotely. Question is, is it better to be at ground zero, or a survivor? :)

Other than fleeing, I reckon the only thing to do is to eat some CBD gummies and hang out with friends, and check he news once a day only. And, donate some money to help the refugees with whatever you didn't spend on the pot gummies.

Having grown up in an era where we worried about such things, I don't envy millenials (and later) learning what it's like to wonder if nukes are going to fly.

I have zero concern until Russia messes with a NATO country which I find highly unlikely to happen. Obviously still heartbreaking what's happening though

After fighting a pandemic for 2 years we now have to deal with a super-power that can start a potential ww3.

I do not really care at this point. I live live through my day regardless and whatever happens is way out of my control.

If there is one take-away from this all, it is that we have never had the tools we have today to spread correct information in the battle against the haze of miss-information.

I have come to the conclusion that this outcome is best to not think about. Perhaps easier said than done. I am trying to push it away from my mind, although not completely successfully.

It is probably also best to limit time following the events. I am struggling with this myself. I think very important with time outdoors, time away from news, and time to enjoy something.

I am not scared, but I do think it is the start of WW3. There are Ukranians fighting tooth and nail for their country right now. I think Russia will eventually push further west than Ukraine and NATO countries will have to defend themselves.

Think about it: they're already committed. There's no coming back from what they have started.

This will be an all-out war, 3 days max. Fuck downvotes, prepare - if predictions are wrong, laugh, shrug it off and have fun, if not, profit.

https://www.vox.com/2015/6/29/8845913/russia-war

Indeed, whether or not you watch the news will not change the outcome or help anyone. Perhaps a weekly check-in and a call to your political representatives might be in order, if you want to maximize your influence.

The choice then is to be anxious before the outcome of the war, or happy before the same outcome of the war.

I'm hoping the CIA has in some way sabotaged Russia's nuclear misstles so they don't work. I have no confidence Russia wouldn't use them as a first strike, but their habitat of listing ships as working until they sink makes me hopeful that maybe they won't work if launched.

Here's a really good, no-nonsense guide to how to survive, should the worst happen. It comes down to avoiding fallout, exercising patience, and some simple actions.

https://youtu.be/ox8ZDbCNTCE

I remember Cold War as a child. Upon hearing the sound of an approaching aircraft, I was always worrying that maybe this is the nuclear bomber carrying my death. I tried to calm myself reckoning that death will be probably quick and painless.

Nope, I feel this too. Dutchie here. I was looking at the map where there is the least likelihood of radio active fallout, assuming that at least Russia and Europe will be attacked.

While I think the chance is very slim, I simply don’t want to be here if it would happen at all.

Did you think it was going to happen when russia was invading georgia a decade ago too? How about the 6 million dead in the congo or the current active yemen bombings or the syrian war where russia and the usa had some spats?

Quitting the news might help. Do read this (it was on HN a few days ago). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30430041

What are the odds that you wake up tomorrow and the world's gone to ash? Probably really unlikely. Compared to 5 days ago they're a million times more likely, sure. But a million times a really really really really and I mean really small number isn't that much.

I'm afraid. I'm searching the news for any new information I can and feel overwhelmed. I'm not doing too well through all this and I'm safe and sound in North America!

But. I'm not. At all. Even a tiny bit. Worried that randomly tomorrow I'll wake up and the world has literally ended. There may be war. And there may be bombs. And I may need to find shelter and reevaluate my odds. But. I think there's a much larger chance I'll eat too much due to stress than there will be nukes used. And I can do something about the over eating.

The nuclear stuff is posturing on Putin's part. The biggest reason nobody's sending troops to help Ukraine is to avoid the risk of nuclear escalation in the first place. To my understanding, fighting on the ground or establishing a no-fly zone in eastern Ukraine would require strikes into Russian territory using weapons like cruise missiles that could be loaded with nuclear warheads. So we're not doing that.

Neither widening the war beyond Ukraine nor randomly launching nukes at NATO would benefit Putin. And this is not even close to the tensest moments of the Cold War. So I'm not worried about World War 3 starting. The most likely outcome right now is that Russia is able to conquer Ukraine and ends up fighting a bloody insurgency while suffering under heavy sanctions. I don't know where that goes, but the rest of Europe will survive to find out.

All that being said, I don't want to downplay the significance of a major power starting a war to effectively redraw borders in Europe. That is a huge and terrible step away from the post-WW2 norm.

It might be the first movements towards a nuclear weapon being used —and I guess that's all that matters in some respects— but I don't think Putin has the ability to take any EU or NATO member, and trying would be a quick suicide.

It's hard to get an unbiased viewpoint but it seems like Putin has few allies at home, let alone abroad. The West wouldn't forgive China and they can't afford to lose the support of their shiny new middle class. Belarus can barely suppress its own population. Iran and North Korea aren't mobile armies capable of moving any further than their neighbours and I'm not sure they'd want to die on this hill for their weapons supplier.

So I guess, maybe, but the way things are going, a coup seems more likely.

But having Armageddon plans isn't bad. Many components will be transferrable concepts for severe weather events, which do seem likely over our lifetime.

I call on us all to force our own leaders to the negotiating table. This needs to be worked out immediately. No good can come from this war.

It's very unlikely given US and UK made it explicit that they won't land troops in Ukraine.

Russia and US both know what their respective red lines are now, and recognize MAD when they see one.

No, not worried, but probably because as an older people we've been through this before. As kids we lived through the Cold War and had nuclear missile drills in school. I did a school project on how to build and stock an underground bomb shelter. Nuclear annihilation seemed imminent and the threat seemed very real.

Here we are 50 years later and the threat seems LESS real because there are so many ways to send a message to Russia without using weaponry. A lot of this war will be 'fought' on social media as well as legacy media. So much easier to rally and organize people and set up citizen constructed defences. There are sanctions, banking seizures, asset freezing, refusal of services, air space restrictions, punting ambassadors, sending citizens back to Russia... its not like Putin hasnt already gotten the message that this war is a bad idea.

I am worried, both about the situation unfolding, and the fact that a lot of people are almost in classical denial. It’s like watching “Don’t look up” in real life.

we have been here before, a number of times, what we really need to pay attention to is how much putin has to lose. if he has nothing left then he is free to act impulsively inline with whatever his moral standing may be.

if he has some skin in the game then he will hesitate to play mumblty-peg

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mumblety-peg

Take a vacantion to Bora Bora. Unless there is full world-wide nuclear exchange you'll be safe there, end enjoy the sun. Win-win.

This was every day life as a Cold War Kid. The threat of nuclear annihilation hung over us every day.

Here's the thing - I don't think all-out nuclear war needs to be feared. I recall an exercise the USAF did several years ago where they prepared to launch the entire fleet of land-based missiles. Only 10% of the silos were able to open adequately enough to allow a launch. Of those able to launch, only a fraction would be able to launch due to the age of the launch vehicles. Of those able to launch only a fraction will be able to detonate - again due to aging issues. Of those actually capable of launching, several will be taken out by anti-missile defense systems. Only a fraction of a percentage of the missiles would be able to launch, not be destroyed during transit, and be able to detonate. Yes, things would be horrible for the folks where the bombs actually detonated, but it's not the civilization-ending event as once feared.

Since I'm a Cold War Kid, I hail from the era where nuclear arms were viewed as strategic weapons - they were a threat, a deterrence. They were never seen as an offensive weapon. Now as the decades have passed we don't even see them as much of a deterrence any longer - especially since the country using them will be exiled from the rest of the civilized world for the foreseeable future.

Bottom line? Don't worry about it. If Putin decides to launch then that will be the last you see or hear from the Russian Federation for a long, long time.

I am only concerned because Ukraine is so close to central EU countries. I don’t think anyone wants to go to war or needs it right now, apart from Russia of course.

I will say that I am more annoyed by the fact that we are being bombarded with a lot of weird stuff lately. From Covid straight to potential War outbreak. This is very taxing on peoples mental health.

These events completely overshadow day to day problems because “look at them, they have it much worse”.

Very, very strange.

Putin has basically lied to his people about what is going on with Ukraine. But most people know what's really happening and, more importantly, the higher ups know.

Putin won't be able to launch a nuclear attack because nobody would believe that the integrity of Russia is on danger. More importantly, Russia political system is very corrupt, and they won't allow Putin to make the world a wasteland and lose their privileged life.

I predict, when all the economic restrictions unravel, Putin will step down. Either that or he'll have an accident with a bullet. Multiple times.

At the start, I was scared, having grown up with nightmares of seeing a flash outside my window, and knowing death would come 10 seconds later. I can very much relate to your fear.

I've spent the past few days doomscrolling. I've watched the NATO flights of AWACS and StratoTankers. I know something is being refueled, but not what. I'm very sure the Russians know this as well. They know that it would be fatal to make any incursion into a NATO country, no matter how slight.

I'm now to the point of anxiety fatigue. I'm back into the land of logical thinking, now that the emotional edge is gone.

We've seen the Russian offensive getting bogged down. We've seen the unity that this invasion is causing in Europe. Germany stopped fence sitting, and is starting to make practical decisions, considering bringing it's Nuclear Power Plants back on line to make up for the lost source of energy from Russia. They've also decided to send weapons to Ukraine.

I'm quite hopeful, actually. The fence sitting is over in quite a few other places as well. No matter what happens, the world is uniting against this ill-conceived invasion. It also seems fairly certain that many of the people of Russia also oppose this act. It is reasonable to hope that enough sane people sit between Putin and any actual launching of those weapons to prevent their use, as was done during the cold war.

Plan for the worst, hope for the best. If you can, talk to friends and family who remember the cold war. They can relate to your fears, and give you comfort.

Short answer, no.

Personal opinion, Putin is looking to create a buffer zone between Russia and the rest of Europe by annexing parts of Ukraine.

As he's stated, he doesn't want Ukraine joining NATO, and it's likely, at least partly, due to Ukraine gov warming up to other western govs and likely allowing them to currently setup/operate listening posts for intel operations and the sorts within their territory.

To avoid this kind of activity happening there, Putin is looking to annex at least part of Ukraine and install a puppet gov there to handle managing things and keep western operations further away from Russia.

Best case outcome in this shitty situation, Russia annexes Donetsk + Luhansk. Mid case(?), Russian gov gets everything east of Kyiv. Worst case Russian gov takes all of Ukraine, but that doesn't seem very likely.

A compromise will probably come to fruition in the coming days/weeks. It's already being said that Putin also wants Ukraine to give up its military, but that's possibly a throw away demand in negotiations that he's open to taking off the table in order to get what he really wants, annexation/buffer zone.

It seems highly unlikely that the Russian gov would do this for resources (they've got enough), expanding an empire (that's just more shit to manage), or for ego sake (that's just stupid and Putin's too calculated for that being the reason). It's purely for political/strategic reasons, and it's ugly that lives civilian and military are the cost for something like this.

For the Ukrainians, Chechens, Belarusian and Russian people it has effectively already started, with the countries bordering those all holding their breath.

Anybody that isn't scared at all hasn't really been paying attention. This is a pretty dicey situation that can change rapidly and will only end with Putin gone. Until then all bets are off, there are many paths to escalation and only very few to de-escalation and none of those are under control of stable players. Ukraine has the right to defend itself, and if and when tomorrows negotiations fail - which I think is a fairly safe assumption but of course I'm hoping for the opposite - then things will get a lot more dangerous. I certainly do not expect them to 'capitulate for our sake'. Warcrimes have already been committed, Putin has in the most literal sense made Russia the pariah of the world in sofar as it already wasn't. Nothing more dangerous than a cornered dictator with nukes, we all have to hope that cooler heads in the Kremlin will prevail. But Putin is walking dead at this point, either at the hand of his mates or by going full Jim Jones.

For the rest of us: circle of concern, circle of influence. If you can't change it don't fret about it. Things will happen as they will.

Russia would need to attack a NATO country. No US forces will defend Ukraine in Ukraine.

Yes. This situation is dangerous. It's moving quickly and getting out of hand. The comparison to the Cuban Missile Crisis is apt.

The US and Russia have already been fighting hot proxy wars for a decade. US arms have already been killing Russian soldiers. A lot of weapons were pumped into Syria. In turn Russia ramped up tactics used. No one won. The Syrian people lost, badly.

If this doesn't end quickly, best case is another Syria or Iraq.. Just horrible mass devastation. Worst case is the end of the world.

I was glad to see the Americans finally put in a red line on escalation. They didn't agree to a "no fly zone" (what perfect Orwellian doublespeak), or ratchet up rhetoric in response to Putin mentioning nukes.

Nah, no one cares enough about Ukraine to escalate this to WWIII.

I'm annoyed that not a single person at work has even brought it up. Other than that, nah, I've lived an interesting life and don't really care whether it's the end of the world.

I don't think it'll come to that, because for all of Putin's control, everyone around him knows that nukes will be the end of the world. So those around him can't let it happen.

Or I'm wrong, and they can. We'll find out.

I have a mirror of one of Ben Marking's WW3 videos. I should reupload it. It pretty much predicted all of this.

https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/8mlori/what_happen...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14508078

They're gone now though.

I have been prepping for another a disaster or war most of my adult life. It's always good to be prepared. Can't count on the US being a superpower forever. This is why I'm happy I guns and ammo where I was born. I have MRE's for a long, an extended time. The ability and knowledge to garden & hunt for food. As well as trapping. I have a bunker, and an isolated cabin available to me and my family. There wouldn't be many if any survivors in a nuclear war between superpowers. If we are ever invaded, at least I can give myself and family a fighting chance of staying alive for a bit. I would rather die fighting than to be a prisoner of any sorts. I know a land invasion of the US is a very slim chance, but there's always a chance in life. I should also have no problems surviving more or less forever without internet (laugh at this one but our world runs on the Internet at this point as most of you should know.) or power. I can survive without running water, sewer. I am able to garden and hunt if it were to come to it. Likewise, I feel bad for those in cities. You're the ones that are going to have the toughest go at it if anything major were to happen. Hope nothing happens, I hope the Ukraine survives this. I feel horrible for any of the people that have no training that were forced to be canon fodder for their government. It's a shit situation. I'm not a praying man, but my thoughts go out to all their families. I hope there's something NATO can do to step in and stop this soon. Standing by shouldn't be an option. Just to be clear, I do not believe in war, I also don't believe in being bullied either. Sometimes it may be the only option left. I may have prepared more than others, but I seriously hope nothing happens. Putin is a dangerous man, and I'm not sure Joe Biden has the mental capacity left at this stage in his life to make the right decisions. I have no issues with the man, just worried. I would Kamala Harris in power over Biden in this situation. He's aging quick. Peace & Love to everyone, except for Putin!

Yes, most probably it is begin of WW3.

No, it won't be nuclear war.

Yes, I am Czech and I am worried about it. Putin is plausibly irrational, as his invasion in Ukraine (and other behavior) has shown, and the MAD doctrine only works with rational actors (which is its biggest, but not the only, flaw).

I wish that especially US (but other nuclear powers as well) stands aside of this conflict as much as possible (militarily), especially avoiding any further nuclear escalation, since we cannot ensure that Putin is acting rationally (and not on paranoia, like the famous character of Jack D. Ripper). The Ukraine can be supported to deflect Russian attack within European countries only.

And whatever happens, I hope MAD doctrine will be finally considered, in the light of these events, to be the stupidest idea ever. And we will do instead some serious effort in denuclearization and establish a zero-nuke policy.

I live in Russia, and I am really worried. De-professionalization of the defence and foreign affairs ministries are obvious to anyone with a bit of critical thinking. Just look at our negotiators: it's led by the ex-minister of Culture, a "historian" with a fraudulent PhD thesis, and manager of the military history society, which invents it's own reality.

The foreign affairs speaker constantly uses insults, just as the minister Lavrov.

Russian space agency is run by a PR and foreign relations guy, who never managed anything more substatial than a modest political party, and now is just doing freak show on Twitter.

My major hope is that the elites alliance will start to rattle and falls apart, and maybe they dispose Putin, like Khruschov in 1964.

There is a lot of focus on criticizing news media and accusing those worried of consuming the bad ones, but I think that's kind of unreasonable to apply broadly. The fact, regardless, is that Putin and the Russian state news are threatening very explicitly to kill the world for confusingly-described reasons only semi-related to what's actually happening (sanctioning Russia, supplying Ukraine). It's reasonable to believe they are just trying to scare people and nothing will happen, but it's also reasonable to be worried. That said - you should indeed not worry about WW3 (at least not the nuclear kind we assume it would be), but not because of the general hatred for much of news media.

To avoid war, it is better not to be a hypocrite.

Yes. Definitely. At the start of the war Biden promised to stay out, now NATO countries (with implicit approval from D.C.) are scrambling to supply arms and fighters to Ukraine. This is an escalation and will be answered by Russian nukes. Hope I'm proven wrong, though, and hotheads from Brussels manage to back down gracefully.

To anyone delusional enough to call Putin irrational/bluffing/terminally ill: this is not about Putin. Beltway policy wonks have been talking about this for a decade - Russian army went through a _doctrinal_ shift that drew the lines Putin was talking about and simultaneously offered a possible solution in terms of nuclear demonstrative actions.

If global thermonuclear war is the outcome, there’s nothing I can do about it. There is no gain in worrying about something you can’t control.

In terms of what is within my control, my family is already as well-prepared as is reasonably possible after the COVID panic(s). Any further “prepping” would hurt us economically to the point that it wouldn’t be rational.

FWIW, I don’t think that’s going to happen. The worst case that I see as likely is a limited nuclear exchange, contained within Eastern Europe. I think that would be extremely unlikely, and would result in Putin’s death and drastic changes in Russian politics.

Yes, you're overreacting.

I'm Russian-Canadian. I have no love for Putin. He's an evil monster that would blow up hundreds of his own citizens to justify invading Chechnya and killing hundreds more.

But he's also not Hitler in the 30s. OK, I don't know what's in his heart. And I'm sure if you tried to describe the final extension of the Holocaust in 1936, people would laugh at you and say you're overreacting. Probably even German leadership itself in 1942 had no appetite for the details of The Final Solution. (There is a truly tremendous film about this from 2001 called Conspiracy [0])

But even if he had the ambition and drive and hatred of Hitler, he doesn't have the means. Germany was the 3rd largest economy throughout the 1930s. The military was in the same range, and it was arguably the most technologically innovative in tanks, submarines, and rockets until the rest of the world struggled to catch up throughout the war.

Russia isn't anywhere close, so it couldn't support or succeed in a land invasion even if tried.

The only fear might be if it actually launched ICBMs, but such actions cannot be done by the whims of one madman, and I believe there is enough reasonable people to stop Putin from doing so.

That's not to say things can't get much worse before they get better. The only thing that will stop Putin now is an internal coup, and while the protests are rising, the majority of the civilians still support him. The new sanctions look like they're helping, but there could still be tens of thousands of civilian deaths in Ukraine before this ends.

I also wouldn't put it past Putin to commit wholely to attempting to punish any non-NATO countries now via invasion. I think Finland has every reason to be EXTREMELY worried.

But i ultimately think the dominoes are falling. Russia can't survive being cut off from the rest of the world the way they have been. We're going to look back and remember this as the first step in Putin's fall. But whether it will take 2 weeks or 2 years remains to be seen.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_(2001_film)

I'm not gonna lie I'm terrified because the eagerness people cheer for one side reminds me of the stories about how soldiers went blue eyed into WWI. The most dangerous time is still ahead of us if Ukraine wins this and if Putin and his inner circle sees they have nothing left to lose.

If there is something like a collective psyche then it certainly isn't its healthy usual self (if it ever was) considering how many of us are isolated due to the pandemic. It's a very strange situation.

Russian is here. I am sorry everything that happens because of the regime, we also feel powerless. In my case, it is not even possible to protest, since I am a student and the government won't let me receive any education afterwards. I know many people in Ukraine, so looking at the situation is even worse. Regarding nuclear weapons, Putin is just showing off.

You gotta remember that we've fought conventional wars before via proxy and it has never led to nukes. Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, etc.

We've essentially been playing this game for the past 70 years or so where its acceptable to send arms to nations and lend them support in conventional wars against one of the superpowers, without suffering nuclear retaliation.

And there's a lot of powerful and wealthy people in Russia who don't want WWIII since nobody wins that and they want to preserve as much of their wealth as possible.

If Putin himself feels like he's at the end of his own timeline and goes nuts there is likely to be a lot of people around him who would prefer to throw him to the wolves to try to save themselves as much as possible.

Russian generals who would need to agree to glass the planet probably aren't on the same kinds of lists that Putin and his inner circle are on.

Having grown up during the actual cold war when we were pretty terrified that Reagan and the USSR would stumble into nuclear holocaust by not backing down, this doesn't look that concerning to me.

I'm worried about escalation and indiscriminate killing within Ukraine, but with conventional weapons, and even that will be restrained due to instant video being posted over the Internet. I don't think he can firebomb Kyiv. I can't imagine Putin survives that politically. If he starts trying to launch nukes at someone his own military has to depose him, they can't not act in that situation (maybe he could use tactical battlefield nukes against targets in Ukraine, but I probably can't fathom the levels of outrage that you'd see at that point, and I think his regime falls within hours).

And there's Russians with a lot of wealth and power right now like Roman Abramovich who have to be very unhappy with how this is happening. If it gets any worse, they will throw their weight behind deposing Putin (if they haven't started already). Because at some point Putin could do something so horrible that the rest of the world would go after all the people like him, freeze all their assets, take everything away from them, and throw them in jail until their connections to Putin were investigated. Billionaires with very comfortable lives outside Russia ultimately aren't going to sit by idle while Putin fucks up their lives, and there are Russian generals who will take their phone calls.

Yes. I'd argue that it already is a world war... we're just in this Czechoslovakia stage where people are pretending we can stop this without more war.

There is only one way this ends, and that's with Putin dead. He knows this. And he's exactly the sort of psychopath that is willing to nuke people in order to not lose. It's not a good position to be in.

Is Putin still of sound mind and acting rationally? If so, I'm not much worried about a wider conflict or nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, it's not clear he is acting rationally, and if things continue to turn against his favor (which almost every one here is rooting for) we could be facing a desperate madman with nothing to lose.

Honestly, the answer is no here. Putin can make as many threats as he likes, but he is surrounded by fabulously wealthy insiders who have absolutely no interest in being fried to a crisp. They’re more worried about losing their reservations at Dorsia right now, and push comes to shove they’ll take the old man out back and pop him.

This isn't meant to sound trite but if it weren't for the media would you even know anything was happening?

Notice how all the anti-vaccine mandates protests have disappeared from coverage. This is just the latest news cycle.

If you're not directly affected then just ignore it.

There are people in Ukraine going about their daily business, so no you should not be worried.

Putin is just flexing as he needs some small concession to save face for the eventual withdrawal from central Ukraine.

The other day my son and I were debating if it would be cost-effective for allied nations to simply put a multi-billion dollar price on Putin's head.

No, I am only waiting for news that Putin is dead. I wonder who will be the one to do it, shouldn't take long after monday though.

Not yet.

—

No.

Yes

West is too scared of nuclear war. Putin might actually launch some tactic nukes on NATO bases near Russia to scare the West and force it to move out. But it won't turn into world war. So far Putin successfully played every card and is on its way to restore Russian Empire given enough time. And every time was underestimated by its opponents. If comments in this topic reflect west politician heads, it'll repeat over and over again.

I am. There is a real danger of going WW3.

Putin lives in another universe, he doesn't live in reality anymore.

He gambled before and won (Georgia, Syria, Chechnya).

If he gains something out of this gamble he will only bet heavier and more dangerously the next time. Gangsters never have enough.

OTOH, if he sees he will loose this gamble he will probably go full ballistic, in a nuke way, because will have nothing to loose.

There's no nice outcome out of this disgrace. The guy is a megalomaniac psychopath.

yes :(

Years in the making, Putin's bluff is finally called. He vastly underestimated the sanctions and overestimated the resilience of his "Fortress economy".

In particular, he did not expect the "toothless" EU to apply the most extreme of financial sanctions. And whilst NATO does not step in in any military way, they actually do, as many countries are shipping weapons to Ukraine.

Normally, you could consider that none of this is enough to withstand the military force of Russia, but Russia is about to fall apart...fast.

The currency will tank, there's already footage of a bank run. Several hundreds of billions of $ are frozen. Big scale business transactions blocked. Air travel blocked. The import of critical (technical) components blocked.

The ordinary Russian person, whom you'll usually never hear, was already very distrustful of government. Tomorrow they'll wake up in a dysfunctional "pariah" country to the likes of North Korea. Not only will the economy sink, they will also be culturally isolated. People laugh when Russia is banned from the meme-like "Eurovision song festival", but this does matter. They're also banned from sports, tournament hosting is cancelled, it all adds up into your nationality turning into a source of shame.

And for what? All of this suffering could have been sold and justified to the public by an actual threat, like Germany invading Russia. But no such thing is even remotely the case. The threat only exists in the warped mind of a KGB officer longing back to days...that were terrible to ordinary people.

Imagine being a Russian soldier. Asked to give your life to invade a country of people that look like you, talk like you, and never did anything to you or your country. For a shit pay and for no glory, rather for shame. Morale must be great.

Putin also just betrayed his very own insiders. Imagine being one of those oligarchs right now. A few days ago, all was just fine. Filthy rich and no limits in what you could do. Now they're put in a golden prison. The future is very insecure. Your assets at risk, your movement restricted, rather than a success story you're now a persona non grata, and your very own people may be sharpening guillotines.

Whatever the outcome, Putin accelerated it.

He's beyond saving his own face now, so somebody will have to step in. His inner circle or the Russian people themselves.

As for the nuke threat, it shows desperation. It's the only leverage left. You already lost when you use this as a threat. You never threaten with nukes, that's now how nukes work. It shows you shouldn't have them in the first place.

Anyway, they won't be used. It's bluff. The Russian administration are masters of deceit, denial and manipulation, it's all in the game. Every word is carefully chosen "put in a ready state" so that it can both be interpreted as a threat and fully denied afterwards.

That's how Russia plays its games and now it's about to win some very stupid prizes. Long overdue I'd say.

> I feel powerless to both do anything (in a country that is neither of those two!) and to look away from the news and social media

I'd personally advise you to start looking away from social media and stop "doomscrolling". It's a negative feedback loop, where you're worried about the war, and you end up looking for information, which in turn worries you more about the war. I'm not telling you not to stay informed on current events, just to avoid compulsive information gathering and reinforcing that feedback loop.

I'd especially recommend avoiding social media for information, unless you have a reason to do so (family or friends in the region). Most information on social media is unreliable at best, and a lot of it serves as a way to spread disinformation and propaganda, and by design it also tends to amplify certain feelings. To give you an example, one of the posts on reddit that trended in r/all last week providing information on the war in Ukraine was from a car news site. Few people bothered to read more than the (altered) headline, and immediately jumped down into the comments section to cheer on their favorite team. If there was a social media bingo card, I'd've been a winner: unreliable source, unverified information, appeal to emotion, nobody read the content, enormous amount of engagement.

I'd honestly recommend to stick to a few reliable news sources you trust, and spread your intake of the news across a few fixed moments in the day. Turn off notifications, don't stay on top of a situation you can't affect change in. Be aware of the bias your news sources will have, and be aware that the media wants you to come back for more news and will also gladly ramp up the anxiety levels for that. Try to read the news as dispassionate as you can, and opt for long form rather than reactionary short form articles.

While there's nothing you can do about the war, perhaps there are ways you can do something positive in another place. Stay on top of situations where you can affect a change.

> News and reports today of Russian ICBMs and other nuclear forces being placed on high alert

While I'm not going to argue that this isn't a serious threat, the world today is no more at threat of global nuclear annihilation than it was yesterday or the day before. The actors have remained the same, the stockpiles have remained the same, and there is no real change in mutually assured destruction either. The best use of nuclear weapons in this conflict is to not use them at all, but remind everyone that you have them. Anything else will escalate the situation far more out of control than it already is. Unless someone has gone completely unhinged, they're well aware of this.

> Am I the only person affected similarly by events? How else have you been coping with it all?

A few years ago I came to the conclusion that the way I consumed news had drastically changed compared to how I did before. There's various technological and social reasons for it. For one, the decline of RSS has contributed to it, but more importantly the rise of social media, ubiquitous smartphones and constant internet connectivity contributed greatly to this.

There is a battle on your smartphone over your free time, with notifications, reminders and alerts. The web itself (even traditional news sites) is geared towards maximizing engagement, and to compete with various apps and other sites they too play on your sentiments, or entice you via clickbait. Social networks similarly will play on your sentiments in order to maximize the amount of time you spend on them.

By the end of the 2016 election and the years that followed, I got the feeling that everyone had dived in some terrible rabbit hole. While out for a drink, friends would be busy scrolling on their phones rather than having a conversation. I noticed that people around me who were far more contemplative in the past started to act far more reactionary than they would have in the past. The years in that period were a constant barrage of shitstorms, from one controversy to the next, I found it to be an assault on the senses. If there wasn't a controversy to be stirred, some nontroversy would fill the gap. I noticed myself and everyone doomscrolling, and noticed that the feeling of dread I had been experiencing was strongly linked to it.

I found it all so incredibly tiresome, so I tuned out from the daily churn. I put the smartphone away and started looking at the sources I was consuming and how I wasted my time by letting traditional and social media appeal to my sentiments. Just tune out of the continuous stream of updates and reactions, and start consuming long term and long form again. I don't mean by this that you should stay uninformed, or that you should become completely apathetic, but reduce the amount of time you spend in the immediate reactionary news cycle.

The situation in Ukraine is indeed concerning, but focusing less on the now, the fast react quotes, the immediate developments, in a situation you have no control over will remove a lot of the feeling of impending doom and dread.

There is a difference between justified anxiety, general butterflies, and anxiety disorders. I'm not your therapist so I cannot say but absolutely. This is a major world event with major consequences to people's lives.

The reality is that Russia invaded a sovereign nation. However, that nation never joined any military alliances. So we are not going to defend them.

What seems evident however, Russian special forces are getting their ass kicked in Ukraine and the general troops coming in behind are going to get wiped. Russia is about to come up against general mobilization of highly motivated VERY well supplied freedom fighters.

I'm also pretty convinced there's massive degree of proxy war going on. Everyone's special forces are in ukraine wiping Russians off the map. Everyone has basically declassified Russian troop movements. The Russians can't win.

When a country starts a war like this and after only a few days of losing spectacularly... they call for peace talks. They know they screwed up pretty big time. Russia will be paying for this for a long time.

Tell your representatives that America doesn't need to be, and should not be involved.

WW3 won't happen until N. Korea invades S. Korea forcing the US to respond with tactical nukes, triggering nuclear escalation. Probably won't be until 2027 or so. I always get blasted when I mention joel skousen's site, but he's literally been talking about this since at least 2005. https://www.worldaffairsbrief.com/