Vic4

@Hister, thank you. That's an incredible interview.

@Vic4
I, think, regarding to your question about animus between Russians and Ukrainians, this will be interesting for you. I found this remark about the difference in "war myth-creating" propaganda in Russia and Uktraine in someone twitter and translated it. I think you and other now will be understand better the difference in our mentality, though this is only one part of this difference. I can say this mockery of the enemy and great sense of humor greatly helped us during Maidan and in 2014.
In general, have you noticed the difference between us and the enemy in propaganda? Their myth-making is absolutely Soviet. Then someone there covered the commander with his body and stopped the RPG shot. Then someone heroically shot down 10 helicopters with one shot. Then again at the cost of his life he saved something there, layed down on bunker ambrazure and that's it.
And what ours? Gypsies stole a tank. A woman shot down a drone with a jar of cucumbers. Buryats sit and learn the word "palyanytsia" [this is like Byblical "shibollet" - native Russians mostly can't say this word correctly and this is one of the means to uncover diversants, for example]. Someone crap into a Russian tank. Do you feel? This is a purely Cossack mockery of the enemy, something deep, popular, like in the fairy-tales, when the enemy is not only defeated, but also ridiculed. These are all photos of our soldiers with cigars in their teeth, with swords ... that's it! This is a pure picture of Repin about a letter to the Turkish sultan! The pure story of Zmiinyi Island - not just do not give up, but also to show own audacity, ridicule death, humiliate the enemy even before own death! This is the difference between armies, the difference in mentality, the success of our soldiers and it's incredible!

@melm
Very respectfully disagree. There is a certain individual that has well documented affinity for Putin and a penchant for lucrative, unrequited real estate deals in Moscow and a general distaste for NATO that has been quite a topic in our country recently. //nuff said

@melm
Very respectfully disagree. There is a certain individual that has well documented affinity for Putin and a penchant for lucrative, unrequited real estate deals in Moscow and a general distaste for NATO that has been quite a topic in our country recently. //nuff said

@melm
Very respectfully disagree. There is a certain individual that has well documented affinity for Putin and a penchant for lucrative, unrequited real estate deals in Moscow and a general distaste for NATO that has been quite a topic in our country recently. //nuff said

Russia is an empire. Like any other empire in history - it consists of dozens of different ethnicities. And to keep that all together and not infighting permanently - an empire has to erase ethnicity's culture, language, identity - naturally nobody would agree to any of that peacefully - so an empire has to genocide its way through all the resistance to forced change until people are turned into a grey mass with no past and no roots.
It's been like that since ancient Egypt and Rome and it's no different now.
Furthermore an empire has to expand to exist, because empires are extremely conservative and improving living conditions among other things isn't the priority because of that - so stagnation is death of an empire. Proven by the USSR and British Empire in 20th century.
With Ukraine, however, it's amplified by the ever falsified russian history, where they want their roots to start in Kyivan Rus and not in Golden Horde, khans of which created Muscovy, because for a supposed empire to have its roots among barbarians is degrading or something.
So they just have to have Kyiv or their history makes no sense even to them.
This thing with ethnic cleansings here isn't something recent - it's been going on for 300 years. Russia first captured most of Ukrainian territories only in 18th century and since then they did continuous genocides with millions of victims, down to literally forbidding us from speaking our native language - in fact it was forbidden as recently as 1991.
Hence why you see putin spewing insanity about "Lenin inventing Ukraine" and other fascist nonsense about "borderlands" (Kyiv being a "borderland" of 'Kyivan' Rus was always funny to us).
As for us - seriously we didn't hate russians up until 2014, we would've happily never cared about them at all. I mean I personally wasn't even interested in what's going on in their country and even happily ignored their trashy behavior towards us up until 2014.

@kraze& @Haiduk et al
Could you please elaborate (in an unbiased manner) what drives the ethnic/racial animus between Russia and Ukraine? If I understand correctly, you refer to “ethnic cleansing” as being a prominent motivating factor for the typical Russian soldier, regardless of the overarching geopolitical dynamics between Russia and “the West”. In short, from your perspective, what is the origin of all this hatred and to what end does it serve?
Lastly you speak of the disintegration of Russia as being necessary. What does that look like in terms of re-divided nation states; governments etc.? ...Disclaimer…I don’t want to derail the thread or inflame emotions so if a dry, calculated answer is not possible then please refrain. Thanks

This is one thing - so called "Russian great-state chauvinism". Russian ideology (in Russian Empire times, or in modern Russia) rejects any thought that Ukrainians are separate nation with own hystory, language and culture. Any ideas about Ukranian statehood, independent from Russian influence summons in Russia the flow of angry. Russian ideology confess a conception of "Trynity nation of Holy Rus" - Great Russians or "Velikorosy" (Russians), Minor-Russians or "Malorosy" (Ukrainians) and Belorussians (Belarusian). Russians recognized some diffrences between them, but like minor details. For example, Ukrainian languge for them is just "rural southern Russian dialect, junked with Polonisms". So, since 17th century, Moscovian tsars, Russian emperors, Soviet leaders always opressed Ukranians, trying to turn them into Russians or later in some sort of denationalized "Soviet people". They denied Ukrainan language, repressed our cultural figures, we had many wars with Moscovia since 14 century and three in last 100 years, including the current. 
They consider independent, pro-western Ukraine as direct threat to Russia and their "trinity nation ideology". Russia consider itself like a heir of Ancient Rus' (but Rus' is not a Russia!), but there is one big problem. Hystorical core of Ancient Rus' is Ukraine - Kyiv, Chernihiv. From Kyiv the Rus' was baptized. Kyiv alredy existed, when on the place of the Moscow there was a swamps. Without Ukraine Russian conception is flawed. 
From there are weird theories, that "Ukraine ideology was invented by Austo-Hugarians (like variant by Poles) to destroy unite Russian nation". Putin tells almost the same - as if the West created modern Ukraine like "anti-Russia project"
 

@kraze& @Haiduk et al
Could you please elaborate (in an unbiased manner) what drives the ethnic/racial animus between Russia and Ukraine? If I understand correctly, you refer to “ethnic cleansing” as being a prominent motivating factor for the typical Russian soldier, regardless of the overarching geopolitical dynamics between Russia and “the West”. In short, from your perspective, what is the origin of all this hatred and to what end does it serve?
Lastly you speak of the disintegration of Russia as being necessary. What does that look like in terms of re-divided nation states; governments etc.? ...Disclaimer…I don’t want to derail the thread or inflame emotions so if a dry, calculated answer is not possible then please refrain. Thanks

Well EU had to make itself dependent on someone, at least until we could get enough renewable energy up and running and gas was supposed to be at least not as bad as oil or coal. So, Russia and the US were candidates.
Now, you really have to understand just how much trust both George W. Bush and Donald Trump shattered over here. During G.W. Bush's presidency German chancellor Schröder laid the foundations for our even further commitment to Russian gas. And Mr. Trump openly tried to blackmail the EU. Several times. Up until now, while everyone knew that Putin is far from being the "Flawless Democrat" former Chancellor Schröder once called him, he never tried that (with the EU). Also worth mentioning (something that came up over here quite often), the Soviet Union and later Russia was always a reliable supplier. Did we trust Putin? Not really. Trump & Co showed us, however, that the USA also were far from being the reliable partner they supposedly used to be.
Personally, I still have trouble believing that the USA support Ukraine because they are a democracy defending western values and not because Ukraine is of geostrategic interest against one the (at least nuclear) superpowers undermining US dominance.
Last but not least. At least German foreign policies was based on Change through Trade. It worked rather well back in the 70s and 80s and so somehow we tricked ourselves into thinking that through trade we could slowly kind of change the autocratic countries around the world towards our values. And also make money while we are at it...

One more...

In February 2021, Amnesty International stripped Navalny of "prisoner of conscience" status, due to lobbying about videos and pro-nationalist statements he made in the past that allegedly constitute hate speech.[290][291][292][293] This designation was then reinstated in May 2021: the international organization stated that the withdrawal of the "prisoner of conscience" designation had been used as a pretext by the Government of the Russian Federation to further violate Navalny's human rights.[41]

Freely admit I'm no expert but he's definitely managed to galvanize much of the population to aspire for democratic ideals. Imho, certainly better than anyone in Putin's immediate sphere that could just as easily or forcefully take control (i.e. Medvedev etc.)

Well first hurdle is whether Putin has completely lost the bubble.  I mean a really bad plan and botching an invasion is not a sign of complete insanity.  If the guy has gone totally "the Russian people do not deserve to exist either if they cannot support me" then the short answer is "yes", we are going to rely on his underlings to take him out and introduce him to his god.  But here one has to really look at his hold on power, it is pretty strong but not to the point 170 million people are willing to die for him alone.  North Korea is another story, and so would a cult state where a really powerful ideology was in play, so think if ISIL won and formed a state with nukes, then we are all in trouble.
The next big strategic question is "how far will Putin go?".  If he moves to chemical, or god help us tactical nuclear weapons to try and save this thing, and his military actually back him, well all bets are off at that point.  But I am not sure if we are there yet, or even will get there to be honest.  A lot of very rich Russians have a lot to lose here, and are losing based on the economic hurt which is just starting. If one adds WMDs onto civilian areas on top of that I think we will see a Russian coup, maybe a civil war...which is whole other set of bad.

I can understand the concern, all the DEFCON stuff is also troubling.  When one elevates that equation - nuclear war - Clausewitz no longer applies, one cannot pursue a policy of self-destruction rationally.  So the real question is one of "is Russia a suicide state?"  And despite the obvious issues, I have to go with a firm "no" on this one.  I do not think they are ideologically there, nor is this existential to the Russian people.  It is likely existential for Putin and his government but I am not sure even his hold on power is cultish enough to go down this road. 
Now if we start seeing BMD batteries outside major US urban centers, I will start to get worried, but I expect this is Putins way to try and get the world to back off and somehow contain this mess. 

IMO no we already supplied Javelins and other weapons so that boat has already sailed.
NATO has been very clear and open with the Russian Cabal no boots on the ground but supply of weapons will happen especially if Russia crossed the border. 

I am ashamed of the actions of my government, I hoped to the last that there would be no war and this is just a bluff. Now anti-war rallies are taking place all over Russia, no one supports this war, there are a bunch of idiots who support it, but I assure you that the majority of the population is AGAINST THIS WAR. 
I honestly empathize with Ukrainians, but in no case will I rejoice at the death of our Russian soldiers! Young guys who could live a long life and do so much good in life, and not die for the sake of crazy ideas. 
 


 

 

 


 

Incredibly sad day

Thanks Elvis for that appropriate response and approach to keep this open, I sincerely appreciate the team keeping this open. 

Lack of leadership?  Biden's been calling out that invasion was imminent for weeks and he is the one leading the response from the west.  And while short of war, it's a much more unified front than Putin (or anyone else) expected. 
Meanwhile, the guy who tried to destroy NATO while in charge has been praising Putin the last couple days as a 'genius'. 
 

Horrible news. Thank you for the updates Haiduk and I hope you are somewhere safe!

Hi Devs,
I'm experiencing a recurring bug in Cold War while using the standard camera movement it will suddenly freeze at random and will remain frozen btw ~30-120 secs. Sometimes it will pick up the movement after the elapsed time and others it will simply be a CTD. It seems general rather than scenario specific. Not sure if this has been reported already but would be great to have fixed in the coming patch. Running on an iMac Pro: Big Sur 11.2.3 - w/ plenty of Ram and processor power. Otherwise great game from BF, congrats to Bil H. and The Cap't. Cheers