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Comment by varjag | Hacker News Reader

Complete comms blockade with Russia. Complete trade embargo with Russia. Complete embargo of sanction breaching states. Complete sea blockade in the Baltic and Mediterranean. All within technical reach and no option of proportional retaliation by Russia.

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Great - when will Europe start doing that? It doesn’t even ban Russian tourists.

I am posting this from Norway. It most certainly bans Russian tourists.

Yes but not most of the EU, right? If I’m wrong please correct me as this would be new information.

I think it's banned in most of Northern Europe, with less enthusiasm in the South. However there's an effort to ban it across the bloc, which is likely to happen at some point.

https://www.rferl.org/a/eu-limits-russians-entering-bloc/338...

And anyhow, your question was what Europe can really do to end the war. I just listed some practical, low escalation options.

Sure but why only low escalation options? It’s a war. Also I’m not too sure much of those are necessarily “low” escalation. But let’s assume they are. I agree with the goals - let’s get Europe to implement as soon as possible. Do you think a “coms blackout” for example will force Russia out of Ukraine? Idk.

Also why is it taking a long time? Why is Brussels working on a “nuclear” option? Just ban them tomorrow, and seize Russian assets and property in the EU. Have all Russians return to Russia. What is Europe waiting for and why wasn’t this done on day 1 of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine?

A comms blackout and other forms of blockade will severely hamper Russian influence ops in the West. That would make other forms of confronting Russia politically tenable.

For my end am fine with just glassing Russia today, you don't have to convince me.

Glassing Russia? You and what army?

I dunno, maybe we should ask Pakistan, the greatest power of South Asia.

Good luck with that. And there is no such thing as "South Asia," just like there is no such thing as Europe. The former is the Indian subcontinent and the latter is West Eurasia.

Eurasia wasn't used until the appearance of 20th century movements. But fine I'll rephrase: Pakistan, the greatest power on Indian subcontinent.

Well they're more powerful than all the Baltic statelets and Scandinavian "countries" combined, so I'll give you that.

https://www.globalhungerindex.org/Pakistan.html

Very possibly so! They've won all their wars over India too which is much more populous than all the Nordics too.

You probably think The Ukraine is winning as well.

I am not thinking that Ukraine is winning but I am a decent human being so naturally can't cheer for Russia.

A decent human being doesn't pray for "glassing" a country.

Especially the 1971 war, where they won so well that East Pakistan became a new country.

Channel your indignation into victorious dance.

You do understand that a naval blockade is an overt act of war?

You're basically asking two nuclear powers to go to war. The US has been sly in its blockades, but anything like what you're suggesting is basically WW-3.

Speaking of overt acts of war, Russia just blew up a merchant vessel in EU territorial waters. A little blockade will do just fine.

About time. I really don't understand why Russia has been so restrained. They should have used NATO style tactics from day one, like the methods used on Yugoslavia, Iraq and Syria.

So we agree that blockade is not a problem then, goodie.

NATO never had a combat mission in Syria or Iraq.

Russia, on the other hand, together with the Syrian government bombed so many hospitals in Syria that Doctors Without Borders stopped reporting the locations of their hospitals.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/18/msf-will-not-s...

https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/10/15/syria/russia-strategy-ta...

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