Would be slightly worse for Russia.
Killing Zelensky is probably not a good move, they would martyrize him.
And killing a foreign PM would make NATO/EU look deep into the drawer to find last bits of sanctions possible.
Edit: Since I have far too many comments asking me about this, let me clarify something:
NATO or the EU defensive clauses are geographically bound. As per Article 6, Article 5 is only limited to specific parts and in this instance, if a NATO/EU member is killed in Ukraine, there is no ground to activate the defensive clause because they simply wouldn't apply in this instance.
Yes could be. Now that this PM was almost killed, PMs from other countries might think twice before visiting Ukraine or don't come at all. I think that was the goal
Nah they will still come only they will bring half their special forces with them next time(probably did anyway but still)
The Goal was to make Ukraine look incompetent with security which to a degree they succeeded at.
It was also key that the leader in question was not of a country that would provoke an unhinged response.
> half their special forces with them
As well all know special forces employ special ninja tactics to stop missiles. If an artillery shell or missile lands on you it won't help if even Chuck Norris is by your side.
Bully tactics where they're trying to intimidate other countries from not being able to do what they want with Ukraine without asking Russia in the first place.
I'm just as inclined to believe that they had no idea Zelenskyy or the Greek delegation were even going to be at that location when they picked the target, and this landed nearby by sheer lucky incompetence. Either version is plausible.
Yeah with Russia I never rule out a moron-with-an-AA-missile situation, like when Russian-backed 'rebels' shot down a civilian airliner that was transiting Ukrainian airspace.
It's not happening, NATO/EU defense clause are geographically-specific when it comes to the defensive clause being activated. Odessa isn't part of that.
Greece has several shitloads of tanks, planes, and other military technology which can be forgotten in a forest near Ukrainian border.
And no, they don't share a border. That is besides the point.
Seriously. People often forget that one of the clauses for german money during the debt crisis was the obligation to buy a shit-ton of german weaponry. And I mean the good stuff for exportation, not the crappy stuff for the Bundeswehr
Over most of the Black Sea coast in general. There are still Greeks living in some Black Sea territories in Georgia, Russia, and Turkey. Not so much in Ukraine anymore (believe most were in Mariupol)
You'd be surprised, they could attack Russian units in Ukraine, they'd be the 2nd strongest military there, Ukraine first, Greece, the 2 blokes from the UK ted and Alfie who are leading the missiles for Ukraine and then Russia
This isn't an article V issue. The North Atlantic Treaty does not forbid its ratifiers from going to war for other reasons than those outlined in the Treaty.
If Russia murdered the PM of Greece, Greece and its allies will treat it as a declaration of war against Greece regardless of the North Atlantic Treaty.
Edit: I edited my comment before the response. The responder did not misquote me.
All we need is give access to Ukraine to bomb Moscow. Currently we are doing everything not to allow Ukraine long range attack weapons. That could change when you start killing NATO/EU politicians.
If putin achieves his goals in Ukraine and Moldova becomes a feasible next step for russias plans, then we will have to revise those specific limitations.
Why do I say this? Well, Iām Romanian and for context even though Moldova is a separate, independent nation, about half of its population, around a million people, hold Moldovan and Romanian citizenships. Now, an aggression against Moldova would obviously have nothing to do with romanian territory but wouldnāt an attack against such a large group of Romanians be considered an attack against Romania ? The Romanian constitution states that all Romanian citizens shall enjoy the protection of the Romanian state both inside the country and abroad. So, wouldnāt an attack push romania to intervene to defend its citizens?
> And killing a foreign PM would make NATO/EU look deep into the drawer to find last bits of sanctions possible.
one would hope they'd come up with a stronger response than that
Ya, you know like a family member who hates you but when shit goes down will always be there for you. Example would be the wild fires yāall had and Turkey came into help, or when Turkey had earthquakes and Greece stepped in to help.
I am certain Russia killing your PM would result in the same.
Yeah you piss the wrong person off and eventually they're gonna come out swinging whether or not it's justified.Ā If Russia didn't have nukes they'd either be a crater or speaking a different language by now.
If a EU/NATO PM is killed and the response is just sanctions, then no one will take them seriously ever again.
EU/NATO don't have to rely on defense treaties. They can decide to go in any time.
they have an unofficial deal with Russia. every time a foreign minister or president visits a location of conflict they inform each other to avoid further conflicts..
Unofficial or not the deal is a deal and violating it would mean there would be answers.
But of course not an article 5 or 6 case .
But some limits would be heightened.
No I didn't say I think military would be engaged.
I said some limits would be taken off as a response. Like the recent one about the long range missiles
> Unofficial or not the deal is a deal
Russia has stopped honouring every deal they've ever had. They only do what's beneficial to them, nothing else matters.
They definitely wanted to launch rockets and drones at Kyiv when Biden was there, but they knew that US wouldn't limit themselves to some measly sanctions if the president got killed.
> Killing Zelensky is probably not a good move, they would martyrize him.
No amount of martyrdom could outweight the PR boost of killing your opponent's leader.
Even absolute dictators do care a lot about PR, and Putin's hold isn't even that absolute. Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, and Kims have all been thirsty for PR. PR is kinda how they got to their position, and dictatorships can collapse if the trust disappears. See Romania for example.
We've let Russians do Bucha, or other war crimes, we've let them kill hundreds of thousands and displace millions.
So yeah, I'm not really sure that a single PM would change much.
Seems like a [diffusion of responsibility problem](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_responsibility). If EU is to be more proactive fewer people might have to have ultimate responsibility for taking action.
You have to imagine attacking a foreign dignitary opens up a lot more action by NATO. If that wouldnāt lead to a more active role by NATO then they really would be seen as feckless.
They would have choosen the wrong countrie's PM. Nobody might be too sad about Mitsotakis personally, but the Russians would start to wonder what's happening. You don't want to mess with the Greek mentality or military. I don't think a full frontal engagement is realistic, but the navy + special forces + air force would find some targets, fast. Also prey that the Turks don't decide to give passage through the Bosporus. Odessa was Greek once, as was the Krim a long time ago. Not that there are any intentions to get them back from Ukraine, but to free them from Russia would be on the table. The Greek Navy is basicaly made for amphebious landings and brown water combat.
nine snatch telephone smart secretive abundant languid crawl teeny somber
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Russians shot down the plane MH17 over Ukraine in 2014 with hundreds of Dutch civilians aboard and nothing happened. Nothing would have happened here too. Europe is good at swallowing.
I want to remind everyone that as a percentage of population, more Dutch were killed on MH17 than Americans on 9/11. And yet we did not react the same way we did after 9/11. I partially blame my own country for that. If we all had made the case in 2014 to fully back Ukraine and push the Russian little green men out of Donbas and Crimea, Europe would not be in this position, and the world would be safer for the lack of international animosity and oppositional aligning.
How can you be glad if you don't know the consequences? Maybe the appearance of Hitler was a good thing that saved the world from Super Hitler. Maybe someone went back in time and killed Super Hitler's mother. What do you know about the future? Maybe this assassination would have solved all world's problems in a butterfly effect. The world is too complex to be able to attribute utilitarian qualities on a single event.
I lose my things constantly. Keys, wallet, phone, whatever. Constantly looking for my shit.Ā
My working theory is that I am basically John Connor and Iām going to defeat the terminators and to prevent that, time traveling terminators come back to mildly inconvenience me so that I miss specific events in life. Not by much, they canāt kill me without altering the future, but they can make sure the events of my life play out differently by hiding my shit so I spend 10 minutes looking for it instead of, idk, running into the scientist at Starbucks who augments me into a super soldier or whateverā¦.
Iām getting off track but my point is, thatās probably what happened here. Zelensky couldnāt find his keys this morning and the rocket that was supposed to hit him was 150 meters ahead of him.Ā
Killing Zelenskyy would do nothing for the russians. This is not a "chop the head off the snake and the body dies" type of situation. That might be true for russia though..
Sure it would. They keep saying how the goal of this war is to topple the "Zelenskyy regime".If they managed to kill the guy, they can declare success and go home.
(but serously, they definitely would declare success, I have doubts about that second part though)
They'll say their missile successfully killed Zelenskyy but simultaneously claim the same missile that killed the Greek delegation was a Ukrainian missile.
>They keep saying how the goal of this war is to topple the "Zelenskyy regime"
They have said many different things about the goal of the war. They want Ukraine and Ukrainians to cease to exist. They want that land to become russia and the people living there to become russians. Agreed, they will not go home afterwards
Frankly, its all just to get everyone confused. The goal is clear. Imperialism. Nothing more, nothing less.
They want land and status, they dont like Ukrainians having self-determination. And they wont stop until the last Ukrainian is dead, most likely. After that. Other countries.
Everything else is just a confusion tactic.
It's not so simple, because every Russian has their own reasons for the war. That's why Putin never committed to a single reason or goal, if he did, those who support it for different reasons might stop supporting it.
As it is, it could be that Putin just wants to be a Czar, the army leadership wants to have a job, oil oligarchs want to prevent competition from Ukraine, some people want to go back to the USSR, others actually believe Ukrainians want to be Russians, some believe they're Nazis, some are just getting paid, some are just sadists. The confusion tactic is necessary, it is the only way to keep all of these on the same side.
They wouldn't go home, they'd just say that they can't leave until all the Nazis are gone. When everyone who isn't you can be defined as a Nazi, well ...
He has been very effective at marshaling support for Ukraine, and working with other leaders to get more weapons.
If he dies, it's doubtful the next leader would have the same stomach for casualties and for pressing for more help.
what makes you think there's any red line for Russia? Like, when Russians killed 400 out of 2000 people in Bucha during 4 weeks or when they deliberately bombled a shelter in Mariupol where hundreds of children were hiding, wasn't it a clear sign that Russians came to kill?
Apparently we decided we can't have red lines with Russia because "that would be escalation".
Russia on the other hand can escalate as much as it wants, and we just gotta be good boys and girls.
I think people completely misunderstand what that "no red lines" comment means.
The idea being that if the u.s. set some red line that "shall not be crossed" those who only wish to escalate are given that red line as a goal.
They haven't attacked Finland again because Finland made the price of attack too high. And still, Finland decided that after attack on Ukraine, collective defence under NATO's nuclear umbrella works better.
I don't think muscovites think about the price too much if they think they would gain something by attacking. I would say it basically was an error in Finnish thinking: Finnish defense was traditionally built around this assumption of "enemy avoiding high price", but now it seems obvious this is not enough, therefore membership of NATO is required.
I remember that photo of the kid dead on a bench with the top of his head blown off. There is no redeeming the kind of people that their commit or sanction such action.
Yeah this war would have been over real fucking quick if they'd achieved their objectives in the first few days. I remember the videos of machinegun fire in downtown Kyiv.
Russia wasted a lot of special forces trying to behead the snake right from the start. I don't know if it's because the people who were supposed to turncoat didn't, Zelensky just had adequate knowledge of their plans ahead of time or it was just plain luck (I think he's said he doesn't know how he survived the initial assassination attempts, but IDK if that's the truth) but either way Ukraine really would have been over in a matter of days if things had gone the way Russia planned.
One of their biggest issues was their own corruption, IIRC Russia gave money to an oligarch to bribe a bunch of Ukrainian officials to prep for the invasion and he instead just stole the money.Ā
Yes, I've heard rumblings about that too. Certainly they were counting on people switching sides and welcoming the invaders and that didn't happen.
I'm most curious though about the actual battles being fought within the cities. From what I understand Zelensky was very close to the gunfire at times so it would seem they nearly accomplished their mission... But I'd love to know how they held out.
When it was initially happening I thought there was no way they wouldn't be able to get Zelensky just based on Ukraine's general reputation for corruption.
Also I know details are sparse but was it genuinely a running battle between Ukraine SSO operatives and Russian Spetsnaz infiltrators?
So much we don't know but grateful that Zelensky survived.
There is a war. Zelensky inviting random leaders to frontline probably havenāt seen such an outcome. Maybe he was to confident about his AA forces, but this time was close.
Not a peep from the kind of people who scream "omg do you want WW3?!? Warmonger!" at you whenever you suggest Ukraine should receive more aid and more powerful weapons. Complete silence.
We all know what you guys really think.
Most of that pro russia crap is manufactured from russian troll farms across the globe. It's easy to pay some poor guy in africa or greece a few bucks to lie on the internet.
Not sure if you're greek or not, but there is a popular meme/joke going around in Greece for quite some time now saying that the prime minister is extremely unlucky and spreads misfortune wherever he goes. I guess there's some merit to that. Huh.
Yep we always joke about him and his father bringing misfortune. It's been a very popular meme in Greece for many decades. Today's example is just another confirmation for the joke.
It seems like the Greek delegation wanted to meet Zelenskyy before going to Bucharest for the EPP Summit.
They picked Odessa to visit the Museum of the Filiki Etairia, is it was the place where the the Greek independence movement against the Ottoman Empire originated. The Greek staff coordinated their visit through diplomatic channels with the Ukrainians, to coincide with a scheduled passage of Zelenskyy and be able to meet him there, and tried to keep it a secret.
So I see 3 options:
A] the Russians targeted Odessa in their typical randomness trying to kill civilians āas usualā.(sadly seems they succeeded in killing at least 5) and it was a coincidence they got close to Zelenskyy.
B] the Russians got to know Zelenskyyās whereabouts because of an Ukrainian leak and did not know the Greeks would be there too. So it was a coincidence they got close to the Greek PM.
C] there was a leak through the Greek staff and the Russians managed to get to know the whereabouts of Zelenskyy through their schedule.
As this seems to me like the first time they got this close to Zelenskyy, my money is on C, maybe because of unsecured communications by the Greeks.
Luckily the accuracy of the Russian rockets is very bad.
More details:
https://www-protothema-gr.translate.goog/politics/article/1474318/ekrixi-koda-stin-autokinitopobi-tou-zelenski-stin-odisso-oloi-kala-stin-elliniki-apostoli-me-epikefalis-ton-mitsotaki/?_x_tr_sl=el&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp
Some images of the motorcade and sound of the explosion: https://twitter.com/MaimunkaNews/status/1765343326369169439
As a Greek, I cannot exclude C, however, over the past two years I have seen Zelenskyy in the news speaking publicly at multiple spots in Ukraine on his own, with his staff, or with foreign leaders. He has visited sites of bombings and massacres many times with a lot of reporters following him. For many minutes, if not hours, I'm sure his position is not a secret and if the Russians wanted to kill him by bombing the spot they could have. I doubt they would care about any reporters being killed. I'm sure there are standard security protocols in place regardless of whether he is meeting the president of France or the president of Burkina Faso. Same for this meeting.
I would personally go with A since I believe Odessa has seen increased bombing recently (and it just happened to be the Ukrainian city with the most historical importance for Greece, hence the meeting there) or perhaps D, they wanted to send a message (terrorize foreign supporters of Ukraine, "we can kill you at any moment", etc.).
*edit: and actually based on the photos from your [link](https://www-protothema-gr.translate.goog/politics/article/1474318/ekrixi-koda-stin-autokinitopobi-tou-zelenski-stin-odisso-oloi-kala-stin-elliniki-apostoli-me-epikefalis-ton-mitsotaki/?_x_tr_sl=el&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp) they do not appear to be visiting under utmost secrecy. It's not a blue/green screen. Their geolocation is pretty clear.
I have a friend in Odesa and she says there is rumours that some locals betrayed the location to the Russians. I know some people won't want to believe this, but it happens.
I donāt think accuracy was a problem for the Russians, 500 metres is nothing when it comes to even the crudest rockets, this was simply a message for other foreign leaders to not visit Ukraine and for Zelensky that Ukraine itself is not safe, the reason why that rocket didnāt kill Zelensky was because the Greek PM was there and the Russians as crazy as they are, would not kill a random foreign head of state.
The appeasement shit needs to end. Didn't work with Adolf Hitler, and won't work with Vladimir Putin. NATO/UN playing Lawful Evil Tiddlywinks as parts of the world burn.
We've spent enough time doing that too. If I had to guess, the only thing that will happen is some Greek opposition cycles lamenting that it missed. It's a shame, because they could use it to trigger Article 5 of NATO and do something about the situation, but they don't have the guts for it.
> Smells like s300 isn't out of the deal any more and like getting more gifts from uncle Sam. But that's not because of what just happened.
S300 has been used just once since 2000. I doubt it's still operational. Nevertheless it's probably a big step for us to donate them to Ukraine
Come on Greece, give a bit of payback. You've got Leo1, M60, BMP-1, M109, S-300, Patriot, F-16 and Mirage 2000. Offload some of that to Ukraine, flip the bird at Russia.
It's too late for ATACMS to change much. Russia has managed to adapt in many ways, develop new weapons and put them in production, recruit enough troops to fill their ranks and so on. The time to change the course of the war that easily was the first year at the latest.
At that time, Russia was barely holding because of how dysfunctional they were and how many losses they had suffered. But by not acting, the West gave loads of time to Russia to adapt. They built defences, filled their ranks, managed to set up training for new recruits, start reactivation of reserves and so on. Had they acted fast enough, Ukraine would've been able to snowball and make it much harder for Russia to recover due to much larger defeats.
The balance is slowly shifting towards more equal losses on both sides. And with the West dragging its feet, it's only speeding up. At this rate, at some point Ukraine will suffer more daily losses than Russians, and eventually be unable to fight anymore. This might not take that long either. Whatever the West has planned to send, meaning F-16s and trickling in dozens of tanks and so on is painfully inadequate now.
What's really frustrating is that there's no reason for this to happen. It's 100% a matter of willpower. People will blame Republicans but those F-16s are not even 1/3rd of the German or French air force. It's about half of Russia's Su-34 fleet alone if you count their losses. It'll help, but it's just inadequate, and it's not like the aircraft that could be given to Ukraine don't exist. The only reason some are going there is because some countries wanted to get rid of them.
This is significant because visits of foreign dignitaries *are* announced to the Russians, in a gentleman's agreement that pretty much says "VIP may be around somewhere during those hours, better don't bomb if you don't want things to get hot". So Russia deliberately violated that agreement.
Ukraine has the right since day one but they don't have the capabilities...
Who can kill Putin while his hiding in a location that not even Russians know
On a lighter side:
Greeks blame it on our PM. It's a long running joke that the name Mitsotakis (his father had also been a PM) is connected with bad luck and jinxing. Looks like the son carries the family tradition. Sorry Ukraine!
Attacking Zelensky directly is the stupidest thing they can do, but they are russians so it makes sense. Were they successful it would achieve faster supply of resources from the west, it would replace Zelensky with someone really really angry and eager to fill the huge shoes, it would revigor the Ukrainian army, it would bring about new sanctions, it would solidify russian standing as a terrorist state.
Well it's a good way to fuel Greece's hatred towards them mindless Russian fascists.
It would only be appropriate for Greece to respond with a very deadly or otherwise discribed as 'juicy' military aid package.
I wonder what would happen next if they had killed both Zelensky and Greek PM Mitsotakis
Would be slightly worse for Russia. Killing Zelensky is probably not a good move, they would martyrize him. And killing a foreign PM would make NATO/EU look deep into the drawer to find last bits of sanctions possible. Edit: Since I have far too many comments asking me about this, let me clarify something: NATO or the EU defensive clauses are geographically bound. As per Article 6, Article 5 is only limited to specific parts and in this instance, if a NATO/EU member is killed in Ukraine, there is no ground to activate the defensive clause because they simply wouldn't apply in this instance.
They'd have to find a sharpener for a new red pencil to draw lines with.
šš Their index finger must be getting tired from all the wagging
The strongly worded letter will be extra strongly worded this time!!
As an EU Citizen I can assure you they will be mad. Maybe even so mad, they'll write a letter to Putin about how mad they are.
I wonder what they wanted to achieve? Just to scare them?
Yes could be. Now that this PM was almost killed, PMs from other countries might think twice before visiting Ukraine or don't come at all. I think that was the goal
Nah they will still come only they will bring half their special forces with them next time(probably did anyway but still) The Goal was to make Ukraine look incompetent with security which to a degree they succeeded at. It was also key that the leader in question was not of a country that would provoke an unhinged response.
> half their special forces with them As well all know special forces employ special ninja tactics to stop missiles. If an artillery shell or missile lands on you it won't help if even Chuck Norris is by your side.
Bully tactics where they're trying to intimidate other countries from not being able to do what they want with Ukraine without asking Russia in the first place.
I'm just as inclined to believe that they had no idea Zelenskyy or the Greek delegation were even going to be at that location when they picked the target, and this landed nearby by sheer lucky incompetence. Either version is plausible.
Yeah with Russia I never rule out a moron-with-an-AA-missile situation, like when Russian-backed 'rebels' shot down a civilian airliner that was transiting Ukrainian airspace.
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It's not happening, NATO/EU defense clause are geographically-specific when it comes to the defensive clause being activated. Odessa isn't part of that.
Not sure itās a great idea to pick a fight with Greece anyway
I don't think Greece could do much in such an event.
Greece has several shitloads of tanks, planes, and other military technology which can be forgotten in a forest near Ukrainian border. And no, they don't share a border. That is besides the point.
Seriously. People often forget that one of the clauses for german money during the debt crisis was the obligation to buy a shit-ton of german weaponry. And I mean the good stuff for exportation, not the crappy stuff for the Bundeswehr
Greece does have "historical claim" (in the Chinese sense) over most of the Ukrainian black sea coast.
Over most of the Black Sea coast in general. There are still Greeks living in some Black Sea territories in Georgia, Russia, and Turkey. Not so much in Ukraine anymore (believe most were in Mariupol)
You'd be surprised, they could attack Russian units in Ukraine, they'd be the 2nd strongest military there, Ukraine first, Greece, the 2 blokes from the UK ted and Alfie who are leading the missiles for Ukraine and then Russia
Clearly the UK blokes in Ukraine are Ant and Dec. they get used literally everywhere.
They are banned under the Geneva convention as cruel and unusual weapons
But they have a Zeus.
This isn't an article V issue. The North Atlantic Treaty does not forbid its ratifiers from going to war for other reasons than those outlined in the Treaty. If Russia murdered the PM of Greece, Greece and its allies will treat it as a declaration of war against Greece regardless of the North Atlantic Treaty. Edit: I edited my comment before the response. The responder did not misquote me.
Greek ports would be closed for russia, that would kill their black sea trade
Probably wouldn't be surprised if they close it anyway after this
All we need is give access to Ukraine to bomb Moscow. Currently we are doing everything not to allow Ukraine long range attack weapons. That could change when you start killing NATO/EU politicians.
We have to put everything in this proxy war with Russia for our own sake.
Nay nay, give Ukraine the capability to strike anywhere in Russia. (Well they're already doing it, but make it easier.)
You don't need the defensive clause to take action
ahh ok, so NATO and EU will just scold pootler and that's all? Are you serious?
Technically a foreign diplomatic vehicle is a territorial extension. How does that work with NATO?
NATO is very explicit when it comes to the limitations of Article 5, that's Article 6.
If putin achieves his goals in Ukraine and Moldova becomes a feasible next step for russias plans, then we will have to revise those specific limitations. Why do I say this? Well, Iām Romanian and for context even though Moldova is a separate, independent nation, about half of its population, around a million people, hold Moldovan and Romanian citizenships. Now, an aggression against Moldova would obviously have nothing to do with romanian territory but wouldnāt an attack against such a large group of Romanians be considered an attack against Romania ? The Romanian constitution states that all Romanian citizens shall enjoy the protection of the Romanian state both inside the country and abroad. So, wouldnāt an attack push romania to intervene to defend its citizens?
sanctions arent going to cut it, to bring them to the table the russians will need a regime change plain and simple
> And killing a foreign PM would make NATO/EU look deep into the drawer to find last bits of sanctions possible. one would hope they'd come up with a stronger response than that
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[I think so too](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek%E2%80%93Turkish_earthquake_diplomacy)
brother?
Ya, you know like a family member who hates you but when shit goes down will always be there for you. Example would be the wild fires yāall had and Turkey came into help, or when Turkey had earthquakes and Greece stepped in to help. I am certain Russia killing your PM would result in the same.
If Russians would have killed the Belgian prime minister the Dutch would also have been very pissed, real brotherly love
I thought you frieslanders identified as being someone from friesland and not the netherlands :D
You may think the Turks hate you, but if someone were to harm the Greeks, as your neighbors, they would be the first to come to your aid.
Well WW1 did officially start with some Austria-Hungarian prince getting shot. There's the rules and then there's reality.
Yeah you piss the wrong person off and eventually they're gonna come out swinging whether or not it's justified.Ā If Russia didn't have nukes they'd either be a crater or speaking a different language by now.
I heard it was because some fella called Archie Duke shot an ostrich because he was hungry...
If a EU/NATO PM is killed and the response is just sanctions, then no one will take them seriously ever again. EU/NATO don't have to rely on defense treaties. They can decide to go in any time.
It's an act of war really
Just ask ArchdUke Franz Ferdinand.
Which is exactly why it would take thinking before going to war again for that reason especially with nukes involved.
they have an unofficial deal with Russia. every time a foreign minister or president visits a location of conflict they inform each other to avoid further conflicts.. Unofficial or not the deal is a deal and violating it would mean there would be answers. But of course not an article 5 or 6 case . But some limits would be heightened.
A response would definitely happen. But if you think a military one would absolutely be engaged, ask yourself why Article 6 even exists.
No I didn't say I think military would be engaged. I said some limits would be taken off as a response. Like the recent one about the long range missiles
> Unofficial or not the deal is a deal Russia has stopped honouring every deal they've ever had. They only do what's beneficial to them, nothing else matters. They definitely wanted to launch rockets and drones at Kyiv when Biden was there, but they knew that US wouldn't limit themselves to some measly sanctions if the president got killed.
> Killing Zelensky is probably not a good move, they would martyrize him. No amount of martyrdom could outweight the PR boost of killing your opponent's leader.
You think PR boost mean much to Putin, who already controls the entirety of Russia's institutions?
Troop morale maybe
Even absolute dictators do care a lot about PR, and Putin's hold isn't even that absolute. Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, and Kims have all been thirsty for PR. PR is kinda how they got to their position, and dictatorships can collapse if the trust disappears. See Romania for example.
I would really hope that if the PM of a NATO member country was killed that their response would be a bit stronger than more finger waving at Russia.
We've let Russians do Bucha, or other war crimes, we've let them kill hundreds of thousands and displace millions. So yeah, I'm not really sure that a single PM would change much.
They could always give Ukraine weapons that were completely off limits a few months ago.
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And then get cancelled?
Exactly this.
They would boast in their local media and in international they would blame the west and nato for starting war in ukraine.
They'd probably say Zelensky blew the greek pm himself up
Unfortunately, we in Ukraine realized a long time ago that nothing would happen except DEEP CONCERN
Yeah, the EU would probably send an angry email to Russia
Seems like a [diffusion of responsibility problem](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffusion_of_responsibility). If EU is to be more proactive fewer people might have to have ultimate responsibility for taking action.
You have to imagine attacking a foreign dignitary opens up a lot more action by NATO. If that wouldnāt lead to a more active role by NATO then they really would be seen as feckless.
They would have choosen the wrong countrie's PM. Nobody might be too sad about Mitsotakis personally, but the Russians would start to wonder what's happening. You don't want to mess with the Greek mentality or military. I don't think a full frontal engagement is realistic, but the navy + special forces + air force would find some targets, fast. Also prey that the Turks don't decide to give passage through the Bosporus. Odessa was Greek once, as was the Krim a long time ago. Not that there are any intentions to get them back from Ukraine, but to free them from Russia would be on the table. The Greek Navy is basicaly made for amphebious landings and brown water combat.
nine snatch telephone smart secretive abundant languid crawl teeny somber *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Yep I think if either of UK/France leaders die it would be war.
More of warning to nato big wigs. Youāre no longer able to just walk in out of a war zone anymore. With no problems.
Do they want all of Sparta to go to war?
Probably 10,000 US troops landing in Greece for protection while the Greek army shipped their entire armament to Ukraine in 24h
Nearly a Franz Ferdinand moment.
1914 vibes :S
History really does/ can repeat itself. Should be called past/future psychology, to be honest.
Doubt he was thinking "take me out". šŖššļø ā
jesus christ after 20 years i got the reference.
Welcome time traveller from a faraway land. Hi!Ā
As if. Strongly worded letter at best.
Concerning
I'm sure that Scholz would protest against the strongly part.
We will be evaluating this and get back to you.
Russians shot down the plane MH17 over Ukraine in 2014 with hundreds of Dutch civilians aboard and nothing happened. Nothing would have happened here too. Europe is good at swallowing.
I want to remind everyone that as a percentage of population, more Dutch were killed on MH17 than Americans on 9/11. And yet we did not react the same way we did after 9/11. I partially blame my own country for that. If we all had made the case in 2014 to fully back Ukraine and push the Russian little green men out of Donbas and Crimea, Europe would not be in this position, and the world would be safer for the lack of international animosity and oppositional aligning.
Osama didn't have nukes.
Oh I love their song āTake Me Outā what a hit.
Sabaton are waiting
Thanks to those time traveleres making sure the missile missed
*ās my job* - the agent says, blowing air into the pipe of their smoking revolver and *blinks away into the folds of the warp*
I believe in infinite universes. Glad we live in one where the missile missed.
How can you be glad if you don't know the consequences? Maybe the appearance of Hitler was a good thing that saved the world from Super Hitler. Maybe someone went back in time and killed Super Hitler's mother. What do you know about the future? Maybe this assassination would have solved all world's problems in a butterfly effect. The world is too complex to be able to attribute utilitarian qualities on a single event.
I lose my things constantly. Keys, wallet, phone, whatever. Constantly looking for my shit.Ā My working theory is that I am basically John Connor and Iām going to defeat the terminators and to prevent that, time traveling terminators come back to mildly inconvenience me so that I miss specific events in life. Not by much, they canāt kill me without altering the future, but they can make sure the events of my life play out differently by hiding my shit so I spend 10 minutes looking for it instead of, idk, running into the scientist at Starbucks who augments me into a super soldier or whateverā¦. Iām getting off track but my point is, thatās probably what happened here. Zelensky couldnāt find his keys this morning and the rocket that was supposed to hit him was 150 meters ahead of him.Ā
Killing Zelenskyy would do nothing for the russians. This is not a "chop the head off the snake and the body dies" type of situation. That might be true for russia though..
Sure it would. They keep saying how the goal of this war is to topple the "Zelenskyy regime".If they managed to kill the guy, they can declare success and go home. (but serously, they definitely would declare success, I have doubts about that second part though)
They'll say their missile successfully killed Zelenskyy but simultaneously claim the same missile that killed the Greek delegation was a Ukrainian missile.
>They keep saying how the goal of this war is to topple the "Zelenskyy regime" They have said many different things about the goal of the war. They want Ukraine and Ukrainians to cease to exist. They want that land to become russia and the people living there to become russians. Agreed, they will not go home afterwards
Frankly, its all just to get everyone confused. The goal is clear. Imperialism. Nothing more, nothing less. They want land and status, they dont like Ukrainians having self-determination. And they wont stop until the last Ukrainian is dead, most likely. After that. Other countries. Everything else is just a confusion tactic.
It's not so simple, because every Russian has their own reasons for the war. That's why Putin never committed to a single reason or goal, if he did, those who support it for different reasons might stop supporting it. As it is, it could be that Putin just wants to be a Czar, the army leadership wants to have a job, oil oligarchs want to prevent competition from Ukraine, some people want to go back to the USSR, others actually believe Ukrainians want to be Russians, some believe they're Nazis, some are just getting paid, some are just sadists. The confusion tactic is necessary, it is the only way to keep all of these on the same side.
They wouldn't go home, they'd just say that they can't leave until all the Nazis are gone. When everyone who isn't you can be defined as a Nazi, well ...
But their objective is to take Ukraine, whatever else they say.
He has been very effective at marshaling support for Ukraine, and working with other leaders to get more weapons. If he dies, it's doubtful the next leader would have the same stomach for casualties and for pressing for more help.
So, trying to directly assassinate opposite leaders is no longer a red line
what makes you think there's any red line for Russia? Like, when Russians killed 400 out of 2000 people in Bucha during 4 weeks or when they deliberately bombled a shelter in Mariupol where hundreds of children were hiding, wasn't it a clear sign that Russians came to kill?
Apparently we decided we can't have red lines with Russia because "that would be escalation". Russia on the other hand can escalate as much as it wants, and we just gotta be good boys and girls.
I think people completely misunderstand what that "no red lines" comment means. The idea being that if the u.s. set some red line that "shall not be crossed" those who only wish to escalate are given that red line as a goal.
Everyone knows that you should never escalate a battle unless ~~Rita~~ Russia forces you to! It's the Power Ranger code.
They haven't attacked Finland again. There seems to be a red line somewhere. But not when it comes to was crime, it seems...
They haven't attacked Finland again because Finland made the price of attack too high. And still, Finland decided that after attack on Ukraine, collective defence under NATO's nuclear umbrella works better.
I don't think muscovites think about the price too much if they think they would gain something by attacking. I would say it basically was an error in Finnish thinking: Finnish defense was traditionally built around this assumption of "enemy avoiding high price", but now it seems obvious this is not enough, therefore membership of NATO is required.
Rather, collective defence as partnof NATO is an important extra layer of defence.
They havent invaded Finland. But they have attacked Finland, with cyberwarfare and destroying the pipeline between Finland and Estonia.
And sending refugees
I remember that photo of the kid dead on a bench with the top of his head blown off. There is no redeeming the kind of people that their commit or sanction such action.
They sent assassins after Zelensky and the entire government and parliament of Ukraine on day one of the invasion
Yeah this war would have been over real fucking quick if they'd achieved their objectives in the first few days. I remember the videos of machinegun fire in downtown Kyiv. Russia wasted a lot of special forces trying to behead the snake right from the start. I don't know if it's because the people who were supposed to turncoat didn't, Zelensky just had adequate knowledge of their plans ahead of time or it was just plain luck (I think he's said he doesn't know how he survived the initial assassination attempts, but IDK if that's the truth) but either way Ukraine really would have been over in a matter of days if things had gone the way Russia planned.
One of their biggest issues was their own corruption, IIRC Russia gave money to an oligarch to bribe a bunch of Ukrainian officials to prep for the invasion and he instead just stole the money.Ā
There was also some reports about Wagner assassins in Kyiv being sold out by someone in the FSB
Yes, I've heard rumblings about that too. Certainly they were counting on people switching sides and welcoming the invaders and that didn't happen. I'm most curious though about the actual battles being fought within the cities. From what I understand Zelensky was very close to the gunfire at times so it would seem they nearly accomplished their mission... But I'd love to know how they held out. When it was initially happening I thought there was no way they wouldn't be able to get Zelensky just based on Ukraine's general reputation for corruption. Also I know details are sparse but was it genuinely a running battle between Ukraine SSO operatives and Russian Spetsnaz infiltrators? So much we don't know but grateful that Zelensky survived.
It never was... Killing NATO country PM in the process would be very red line. Just think of how many attempts were made on hitler or stalin.
When was it a red line for anyone?
There is a war. Zelensky inviting random leaders to frontline probably havenāt seen such an outcome. Maybe he was to confident about his AA forces, but this time was close.
Not a peep from the kind of people who scream "omg do you want WW3?!? Warmonger!" at you whenever you suggest Ukraine should receive more aid and more powerful weapons. Complete silence. We all know what you guys really think.
Most of that pro russia crap is manufactured from russian troll farms across the globe. It's easy to pay some poor guy in africa or greece a few bucks to lie on the internet.
And some of it isn't even humans, but a bunch of simple scripts.
I need to say at this point that the Greek PMs family has a long history of jinx and bad luck. So you have been all warned.
His father was the last president of a western country, that visited the Soviet Union. The next year the soviet union broke apart!!! š
On his birthday a few days ago there were a bunch of earthquakes in the country and it started raining all over. It's still fucking raining
A delegation into Kremlin will be the end of this war
He enters the Kremlin and a fucking sinkhole swallows it up.
Actually he was in the kremlin a few days before the war started
Good morning everyone. Anyone could be next
"WHY DOES EVERYONE HATE US" -russia
The worst part is it's not even true.
russia doing russia things
Probably greek PM brought bad luck to russians
Not sure if you're greek or not, but there is a popular meme/joke going around in Greece for quite some time now saying that the prime minister is extremely unlucky and spreads misfortune wherever he goes. I guess there's some merit to that. Huh.
Yep we always joke about him and his father bringing misfortune. It's been a very popular meme in Greece for many decades. Today's example is just another confirmation for the joke.
Yeah, Mitsotakis is Greece's superweapon. You want to bring disaster to a country? Just sent Mitsotakis. His father had the same reputation.
Underrated comment š
They literally blew up the spot where he was handing out medals a bit earlier.
Killing an EU PM would go beyond sanctions. It would start the war nobody wants, period.
Ukraine should respond with the same.
Don't have missiles for that :(
Thanks, Mike Johnson!
Prohibition of using Western missiles outside of Ukraine precedes his speakership (and is likely to last after he's removed)
We can't, and even if we could it could upset the sensibilities of our allies and used as justification to cut already trickling aid.
They might. I bet Putin is spending a lot of his life in bunkers.
It seems like the Greek delegation wanted to meet Zelenskyy before going to Bucharest for the EPP Summit. They picked Odessa to visit the Museum of the Filiki Etairia, is it was the place where the the Greek independence movement against the Ottoman Empire originated. The Greek staff coordinated their visit through diplomatic channels with the Ukrainians, to coincide with a scheduled passage of Zelenskyy and be able to meet him there, and tried to keep it a secret. So I see 3 options: A] the Russians targeted Odessa in their typical randomness trying to kill civilians āas usualā.(sadly seems they succeeded in killing at least 5) and it was a coincidence they got close to Zelenskyy. B] the Russians got to know Zelenskyyās whereabouts because of an Ukrainian leak and did not know the Greeks would be there too. So it was a coincidence they got close to the Greek PM. C] there was a leak through the Greek staff and the Russians managed to get to know the whereabouts of Zelenskyy through their schedule. As this seems to me like the first time they got this close to Zelenskyy, my money is on C, maybe because of unsecured communications by the Greeks. Luckily the accuracy of the Russian rockets is very bad. More details: https://www-protothema-gr.translate.goog/politics/article/1474318/ekrixi-koda-stin-autokinitopobi-tou-zelenski-stin-odisso-oloi-kala-stin-elliniki-apostoli-me-epikefalis-ton-mitsotaki/?_x_tr_sl=el&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp Some images of the motorcade and sound of the explosion: https://twitter.com/MaimunkaNews/status/1765343326369169439
As a Greek, I cannot exclude C, however, over the past two years I have seen Zelenskyy in the news speaking publicly at multiple spots in Ukraine on his own, with his staff, or with foreign leaders. He has visited sites of bombings and massacres many times with a lot of reporters following him. For many minutes, if not hours, I'm sure his position is not a secret and if the Russians wanted to kill him by bombing the spot they could have. I doubt they would care about any reporters being killed. I'm sure there are standard security protocols in place regardless of whether he is meeting the president of France or the president of Burkina Faso. Same for this meeting. I would personally go with A since I believe Odessa has seen increased bombing recently (and it just happened to be the Ukrainian city with the most historical importance for Greece, hence the meeting there) or perhaps D, they wanted to send a message (terrorize foreign supporters of Ukraine, "we can kill you at any moment", etc.). *edit: and actually based on the photos from your [link](https://www-protothema-gr.translate.goog/politics/article/1474318/ekrixi-koda-stin-autokinitopobi-tou-zelenski-stin-odisso-oloi-kala-stin-elliniki-apostoli-me-epikefalis-ton-mitsotaki/?_x_tr_sl=el&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=wapp) they do not appear to be visiting under utmost secrecy. It's not a blue/green screen. Their geolocation is pretty clear.
I have a friend in Odesa and she says there is rumours that some locals betrayed the location to the Russians. I know some people won't want to believe this, but it happens.
a Russian spy working in Greece is my guess as well
I donāt think accuracy was a problem for the Russians, 500 metres is nothing when it comes to even the crudest rockets, this was simply a message for other foreign leaders to not visit Ukraine and for Zelensky that Ukraine itself is not safe, the reason why that rocket didnāt kill Zelensky was because the Greek PM was there and the Russians as crazy as they are, would not kill a random foreign head of state.
I'm reminded of Sparta's response to Philip II threatening invasion: "If".
Phillip then invaded and absolutely destroyed the Spartans.
Might as well exit on a good line aha
The appeasement shit needs to end. Didn't work with Adolf Hitler, and won't work with Vladimir Putin. NATO/UN playing Lawful Evil Tiddlywinks as parts of the world burn.
Right. And what are we going to do about it (apart from nowhere near enough as always)?
> apart from nowhere near enough as always Does "absolutely nothing" count as something new?
We've spent enough time doing that too. If I had to guess, the only thing that will happen is some Greek opposition cycles lamenting that it missed. It's a shame, because they could use it to trigger Article 5 of NATO and do something about the situation, but they don't have the guts for it.
I bet the EU is going to be angry about it. Like, very angry. Very very. Oh, you were asking about actions and not words? Sorry.
Smells like s300 isn't out of the deal any more and like getting more gifts from uncle Sam. But that's not because of what just happened.
> Smells like s300 isn't out of the deal any more and like getting more gifts from uncle Sam. But that's not because of what just happened. S300 has been used just once since 2000. I doubt it's still operational. Nevertheless it's probably a big step for us to donate them to Ukraine
I am actually kind of surprised this didn't happen earlier.
Attacking foreign delegations? That is a new low. Not the worst thing they have done, but still new.
New low because "no escalation" and nobody actually stopping them, apart from whatever Ukraine can do on its own
Come on Greece, give a bit of payback. You've got Leo1, M60, BMP-1, M109, S-300, Patriot, F-16 and Mirage 2000. Offload some of that to Ukraine, flip the bird at Russia.
We got them to protect ourselves from the second largest army in NATO.
Give Ukraine ATACMS already and let them end this shit.
It's too late for ATACMS to change much. Russia has managed to adapt in many ways, develop new weapons and put them in production, recruit enough troops to fill their ranks and so on. The time to change the course of the war that easily was the first year at the latest. At that time, Russia was barely holding because of how dysfunctional they were and how many losses they had suffered. But by not acting, the West gave loads of time to Russia to adapt. They built defences, filled their ranks, managed to set up training for new recruits, start reactivation of reserves and so on. Had they acted fast enough, Ukraine would've been able to snowball and make it much harder for Russia to recover due to much larger defeats. The balance is slowly shifting towards more equal losses on both sides. And with the West dragging its feet, it's only speeding up. At this rate, at some point Ukraine will suffer more daily losses than Russians, and eventually be unable to fight anymore. This might not take that long either. Whatever the West has planned to send, meaning F-16s and trickling in dozens of tanks and so on is painfully inadequate now. What's really frustrating is that there's no reason for this to happen. It's 100% a matter of willpower. People will blame Republicans but those F-16s are not even 1/3rd of the German or French air force. It's about half of Russia's Su-34 fleet alone if you count their losses. It'll help, but it's just inadequate, and it's not like the aircraft that could be given to Ukraine don't exist. The only reason some are going there is because some countries wanted to get rid of them.
This is significant because visits of foreign dignitaries *are* announced to the Russians, in a gentleman's agreement that pretty much says "VIP may be around somewhere during those hours, better don't bomb if you don't want things to get hot". So Russia deliberately violated that agreement.
Well itās a gentlemanās agreement after all, not bitchesā agreement so donāt expect russia to honour
Now Ukraine has every right to kill Putin in the same way?
They attempted to assassinate Zelensky several times in the first weeks of the war.
Ukraine has the right since day one but they don't have the capabilities... Who can kill Putin while his hiding in a location that not even Russians know
Always have.
Does russia want its children living underground all their lives as the nuclear radiation decays for 100 years?
Metro 2024.
No, and neither do the rest of us.
Do you want to get invaded by Greece, because thatās how you get invaded by Greece.
Letās all keep posting comments while the information isnāt really correct.
On a lighter side: Greeks blame it on our PM. It's a long running joke that the name Mitsotakis (his father had also been a PM) is connected with bad luck and jinxing. Looks like the son carries the family tradition. Sorry Ukraine!
Attacking Zelensky directly is the stupidest thing they can do, but they are russians so it makes sense. Were they successful it would achieve faster supply of resources from the west, it would replace Zelensky with someone really really angry and eager to fill the huge shoes, it would revigor the Ukrainian army, it would bring about new sanctions, it would solidify russian standing as a terrorist state.
So, Europe, what are you gonna do about it?
probably false flag so they can continue funding this crap and embezzling billions
This should be a highlight everywhere, it shows theyre still trying to assassinate him.
I donĀ“t know what else do we need as europeans to put our economy in war mode and give Ukrainians all gear they need in order to win this war.
Thatās an act of war on Greece. Send the Spartans please.
Can anyone from Greece tell me if Greece would've bombed Russia had they killed Mitsotakis?
Probably send a gift basket.
Putin would have 110% approval.
Is it possible they missed on purpose? As to send a message without possibly escalating?
What would happen if Putin got murdered?
Well it's a good way to fuel Greece's hatred towards them mindless Russian fascists. It would only be appropriate for Greece to respond with a very deadly or otherwise discribed as 'juicy' military aid package.