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Turkey has entered the chat.  In times of war, the Montreux  Accord provides for Turkey to shut down passage through the straits to any and all military vessels of countries engaged in that war.


https://twitter.com/visegrad24/status/1497950707202375684?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1497950707202375684%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.surlyhorns.com%2Fboard%2Findex.php%3Fapp%3Dcoremodule%3Dsystemcontroller%3Dembedurl%3Dhttps%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fvisegrad24%2Fstatus%2F1497950707202375684%3Fs%3D21

All but his most loyal puppets are jumping ship.  This has backfired spectacularly, no matter the result of the invasion.  The long term damage is not going to be worth it


https://twitter.com/NicholasVinocur/status/1497847168371240964?s=20&t=KXaivJ6UYZezSc-x_0F2Qg

My saying the closing of the straits moves things up to an 11 included fuel tankers coming and going.  Military-only wouldn't include those, I don't think.  Idk.

The Montreux Convention Regarding the Regime of the Straits is a 1936 agreement that gives Turkey control over the Bosporus and Dardanelles Straits and regulates the transit of naval warships. The Convention guarantees the free passage of civilian vessels in peacetime, and restricts the passage of naval ships not belonging to Black Sea states. The terms of the Convention have been a source of controversy over the years, most notably about the Soviet Union's military access to the Mediterranean Sea.[citation needed]

Signed on 20 July 1936 at the Montreux Palace in Switzerland,[1] the Convention permitted Turkey to remilitarise the Straits. It went into effect on 9 November 1936 and was registered in the League of Nations Treaty Series on 11 December 1936.[2] It remains in force.

The long proposed 21st century Kanal Istanbul (Istanbul Canal) project may circumvent the Montreux Convention and allow greater Turkish autonomy with respect to the passage of military ships (which are limited in number, tonnage, and weaponry) from the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara. The Kanal project involves building a 45 km (28 mi) long artificial waterway through Thrace, connecting the Sea of Marmara with the Black Sea.[3] While this route will run nearly parallel to the Bosporus, ships transiting it are arguably not subject to the terms of the Montreux Convention.[4] Currently shipping traffic through the Dardanelles is heavily congested, with long wait times to pass through the Bosporus. The Kanal project‘s primary purpose is to clear up shipping traffic and boost revenue by providing an alternate maritime route.[citation needed] However, the Kanal’s potential ability to end nearly a century of limitations imposed by the Montreux regime was never overlooked by both commentators and politicians, and in January 2018, then Turkish Prime Minister and former Transport Minister Binali Yıldırım announced that the Kanal would in fact not be subject to the Montreux Convention.[5] This announcement was received negatively by the Russian media and government and many have disputed the Turkish government‘s interpretation of the convention‘s original terms.[6][7]

Russians have not established air superiority, in fact far from it.  That's what has been most puzzling to western military analysts.

Day 4 of Russia’s invasion into Ukraine and Russian Forces still do not have air superiority or control of the internet, military comms systems, major airports, large power plants, or any major urban center.

The situation on the ground (not to mention internationally) is unraveling pretty quickly for Putin.

Many raw photos and videos are indicating the bodies of killed Russian soldiers, destroyed/burned/abandoned tanks and convoy vehicles, and captured Russian soldiers, often disoriented and apologetic. A surprise given how many recent war victories Putin’s Forces have strung together and proven themselves an adept occupying force – 2008 Georgia, 2014 Crimea, and Syria’s Civil War. But in the case of Ukraine it’s worth wondering whether the unwillingness of their own military is contributing to what is turning into a dead mission.

A number of captured Russian soldiers are younger than Redshirt Freshman and didn’t realize they were activated to invade Ukraine until their supposed exercises turned into orders to breach the Ukrainian borders. Numerous raw videos indicate this:

-A young captured Russian soldier sobbing on the front steps while Ukrainian Villagers question why he’s here. He honestly didn’t expect to be deployed into Ukraine. When villagers hand him a phone to call his family he only has his grandmother to phone.

-Another young Russian soldier pulled from a tank along with his comrade is handed a phone to call his Dad, who has no idea where he left to or that he was sent to invade Ukraine.

-A pair of shirtless Russian infantry men seated on a staircase inside someone's living room explaining to villagers they don't know why the came. That at the borders their Russian superiors took their documents and their phones and ordered them straight ahead.

-Ukrainian villagers approaching stalled Russian conveys and conversing with soldiers who didn’t know why they were sent to Ukraine and had run out of gas. (Another talking point is how poorly executed Russia’s logistics for this invasion have been.)

Putin isn’t going to occupy a nearby nation with such uncommitted military personnel.


https://twitter.com/ECampbell360/status/1497670938720182277


https://twitter.com/iamsuffian/status/1497772681952837634

Well, let's think about how one could significantly bomb Moscow or Beijing with conventional weapons.  First, you'd need heavy bombers, B-52s in fact, that can tote 60,000 pounds of bombs long distance.  OK, repeated B-52 sorties would significantly damage even a large city, no doubt.

I wonder if OAM can spot an issue with this scenario?  Issues plural.

The fact that the Russians want to meet for talks speaks volumes on just how bad Russia is doing

This.  As much as we here all HATE war, and death and destruction and families being ripped apart - and we do not want our own country to get involved…we have to watch carefully. 

This is still an unprovoked attack and invasion of one nation on another- by an unstable leader who clearly fells emboldened. 

If this continues beyond what we are seeing and spreads - which is not an unrealistic possibility- a completely different strategy may be unavoidable.  A real line in the sand might have to be drawn, otherwise there will be no reason for the unstable leader to stop.

I would hope, and assume that the leaders of this country and its closest allies are already preparing for that and are committed to where and what that line is.    This makes me very nervous-  it seems like a far away place to us here, and hopefully it settles down from its current level.  But it could easily explode into something bigger.

The US as been antagonizing Russia for decades. I wouldn't say unprovoked. Criminal, illegal, and without justification, absolutely. As are all invasions by international law. The US has been very guilty of this same crime, many times over, and people in this country just seem to brush it over- but that's neither here nor there. 

Putin has been talking about the US ripping up arms treaties and NATO expansion and that this would lead to escalation and to a response from Russia- since the early 2000s- and most famously in his 2007 speech in Munich. What did Bush II try to do months after that speech in Munich? Add Ukraine and Georgia to NATO. Thankfully France and Germany made the compromise to block that and tell those countries they'd become members some day in the future- but not now or any time soon. The US has torn up foundational Cold War arms control treaties which helped prevent WWIII (3 of them now by my count), continually expanded NATO to Russia's borders, and they have meddled in the affairs of Ukraine at truly astounding levels - helping support a coup of a democratically elected government in 2014- then hand picking the interim government- and effectively turning it into a US colony- and all of that has played a part to leading to where we are today. 

I don't think the guy is unstable. I think this was very calculated and he decided to make this move on a guy he rightfully perceived as a weak idiot (Biden). His calculation was way off- as the rest of the world and even the few allies he had in Europe are lining up against him. His biggest miscalculation was this: Russia is not the United States. Russia is a regional power, but not much else. The United States is still the world's lone superpower and what we say goes. Russia does not enjoy that level of superiority nor will it ever. China is coming though- I wouldn't say they are a superpower but they are inching ever closer by the year.

I don't think the US is going to let this kick off into WWIII. They knew full damn well from the start they weren't going to send troops into Ukraine or establish a no fly zone. Which is why this whole thing is so infuriating to me. US egged Ukraine on to get tough with Russia- full well knowing that when/if Ukraine gets wrecked by Russia that we were just going to leave them out to dry to get wrecked. US could've made a deal with Russia to keep Ukraine neutral, out of NATO, and guarantee Ukraine's security.

I am starting to think that perhaps this is what the US wanted all along in order to sell more LNG gas to Europe. Germany has already announced they will be buying more LNG gas from the US and that they are building LNG infrastructure to be able to receive, convert, and use said LNG gas.