The Russian invasion of Ukraine (10 Viewers)

[Unicron]

Kinda surprised the Finns are talking about it now tbh. They've done fine out of it this long, like

Their thinking may have gone from "they might, but they probably won't" to "fuck, they might" in the past week.

 

[egg_]

Yeah, but I presume they've gone through that many times since 1945? Anyway i dunno

 

[magicbastarder]

That's true, and it'd be really easy to get into a circular loop on it.

yep, 'we're not joining the "don't invade us" club in case we're invaded'.

 

[Cormcolash]

That's true, and it'd be really easy to get into a circular loop on it. I'd be far more sympathetic to the Russian point of view on NATO where it comes to somewhere like Turkey which, when they joined in 52, seemed like a handy place for the Americans to have some airbases and point missiles at Russia, a more overtly aggressive move by the US/NATO.

A thing I don't understand in terms of the idea of aggression towards Russia and objections to the more recent expansion (say from 99 when former warsaw pact countries started to join) is what's the end goal of this NATO expansion supposed to be? Get enough members so that it's surrounded and eventually invade? That doesn't seem all that feasible. What is the actual Russian fear? NATO has an excuse to go to war with Russia now is they wanted it and thus far it hasn't been taken, granted it's only been a week. If it boils down to a sense of humiliation that Russia (the institution and the people running it) feels because countries in the region that used to be under its sphere of influence have sought to distance themselves from that influence then fuck their feelings, it doesn't trump the rights of other nations to do their own thing.

Yeah. Of course we all know what happened when Khrushchev was going to put missiles in a country near the US. Here we have essentially a reverse situation, where NATO was getting ready to move arms into Ukraine, were repeatedly warned over a period of years about the consequences if this happened, ignored the warnings, and now we have this shit.

 

[Cormcolash]

I mean, this is of course absolutely horrendous stuff from Putin and friends, but you do have to question why NATO and the EU just kept proffering advances to Ukraine for so many years despite all the warnings from Russia. The agreement that Russia would respect Ukrainian sovereignty in exchange for the nukes was clearly dependent upon Ukraine remaining 'neutral' and non-militarised, and Ukraine decisively moved away from any resemblance to that position in 2014, because nazis.

And like even now, Zelensky is pushing harder than ever for EU membership, a move that will probably lead to World War III if it goes ahead. And rather than step away and try and de-escalate, the EU are 'seriously considering' it and basically doubling their military spending.

 

[Unicron]

I mean, this is of course absolutely horrendous stuff from Putin and friends, but you do have to question why NATO and the EU just kept proffering advances to Ukraine for so many years despite all the warnings from Russia. The agreement that Russia would respect Ukrainian sovereignty in exchange for the nukes was clearly dependent upon Ukraine remaining 'neutral' and non-militarised, and Ukraine decisively moved away from any resemblance to that position in 2014, because nazis.

And like even now, Zelensky is pushing harder than ever for EU membership, a move that will probably lead to World War III if it goes ahead. And rather than step away and try and de-escalate, the EU are 'seriously considering' it and basically doubling their military spending.

Ukraine does deserve some agency here though yeah? Russia can warn all it wants but even if Russian is just following through on what it said it'd always do these decisions aren't Russia's to decide for Ukraine.

 

[Cormcolash]

Ukraine does deserve some agency here though yeah? Russia can warn all it wants but even if Russian is just following through on what it said it'd always do these decisions aren't Russia's to decide for Ukraine.

Ukraine has been run by nationalists that hate Russia since 2014. When that's whose running a country, you'd expect the likes of the EU to have a bit more cop on about integrating them into Europe. Like is Hungary not enough of an example of an Eastern European country that needs to sort itself the fuck out and start standing up to the nazis there?

 

[Cormcolash]

Quote from some lad on Prime Time there "But essentially this is all-out war, and this hasn't been seen in Europe in the last 75 years"
This echoes what loads of the media is saying "Not since WWII etc etc"

I mean, I thought there was a bit of a thing in Yugoslavia a while back, I guess I must be mistaken.

 

[seanc]

Ukraine has been run by nationalists that hate Russia since 2014. When that's whose running a country, you'd expect the likes of the EU to have a bit more cop on about integrating them into Europe. Like is Hungary not enough of an example of an Eastern European country that needs to sort itself the fuck out and start standing up to the nazis there?

Ukrainians don't hate Russia. Or at least they didn't a week ago. That's total bullshit. If they have a problem with Russia, it's not because the Ukrainians are Nazi's, as there's plenty of Nazi's in Russia as well. And I'm not exactly sure how much power these Nazis have in any of the countries mentioned.

 

[Cormcolash]

Ukrainians don't hate Russia.

???? The Eastern part of Ukraine doesn't hate Russia. All the rest of Ukraine has consistently voted against any Russian cooperation. The whole Maidan protests started because the (corrupt) government at the time rejected an EU deal and went with a Putin bailout instead. The government was then overthrown with the help of neo-nazi paramilitary groups that were funded and armed by the US to a large extent. A new government was formed, with the actual neo-nazi Svoboda party as a keystone of the regime; one of the first things the new government did was remove Russian as an official language of the country. They later incorporated neo-nazi paramilitary groups, most significantly the Azov battalion, into the military, and gave neo-nazis command positions.
All of this does seem to indicate that a majority of the Ukrainian population (which has continued to vote for nationalist anti-Russian populists, even if the voters might not actually be nazis themselves) do in fact hate Russia.

 

[Cornu Ammonis]

One of Putin’s best mates and top advisers regarding Ukraine (including the annexation of Crimea) is a Nazi:

Aleksandr Dugin - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[Cormcolash]

Yeah, and? Pretty sure everyone is in agreement that Putin and co. are cunts too, aren't they?

Isn't war the inevitable result of two neighbouring countries with reasons not to like each other and significant ultra-nationalist/nazi regimes in power?

 

[seanc]

???? The Eastern part of Ukraine doesn't hate Russia. All the rest of Ukraine has consistently voted against any Russian cooperation. The whole Maidan protests started because the (corrupt) government at the time rejected an EU deal and went with a Putin bailout instead. The government was then overthrown with the help of neo-nazi paramilitary groups that were funded and armed by the US to a large extent. A new government was formed, with the actual neo-nazi Svoboda party as a keystone of the regime; one of the first things the new government did was remove Russian as an official language of the country. They later incorporated neo-nazi paramilitary groups, most significantly the Azov battalion, into the military, and gave neo-nazis command positions.
All of this does seem to indicate that a majority of the Ukrainian population (which has continued to vote for nationalist anti-Russian populists, even if the voters might not actually be nazis themselves) do in fact hate Russia.

Person to person, they don't hate Russians. They're (mostly) nationalists, not Nazi's. I think Irish people can relate to that. There's some angry men and some drunken uncles, but ultimately they all like borscht and balalaika's and their children too. That's what everyone from over there has ever told me. They're different, definitely, but that's not hatred.

 

[Cornu Ammonis]

Without staying up all night typing on a phone, Dugin’s main strategy is disinformation warfare over long periods of time - he was the one who put in place this idea of blatantly saying your enemy is doing the exact thing you’re guilty of (Ukraine was committing genocide against Russians, Ukrainians are Nazis, Ukraine was looking to take over Russian land, etc.), destabilisation of enemy governments, and the building of a Greater Russia where no price is too high to pay for it. He is literally the guy that Steve Bannon imagined himself being when he was wanking over a picture of Hitler.

You having a fanny attack every five minutes about Ukraine being Nazis apparently trumping the fact that civilians are being attacked by a huge military force just feeds into that disinformation campaign. I’m not saying the far right aren’t involved in Ukraine, or that the Ukrainian government or military are are all great guys, but there are two people in my timelines calling Ukraine Nazis - you and Putin. Sorting out the Nazis from the rest of the crowd kind of takes a back seat to stopping a nuclear power run by Nazis, who seem to only be the bad guys in your books when they’re Ukrainian. Or maybe I’m just missing the nuance of your repeated “Yeah, but Ukraine has Nazis!” posts?

 

[Cormcolash]

Person to person, they don't hate Russians. They're (mostly) nationalists, not Nazi's. I think Irish people can relate to that. There's some angry men and some drunken uncles, but ultimately they all like borscht and balalaika's and their children too. That's what everyone from over there has ever told me. They're different, definitely, but that's not hatred.

Yeah, I think it's pretty much the case though that the nazi ones aren't the ones that would be moving over this way to try a different kind of life. The nazi ones will be the ones that don't leave Ukraine and join the army before anything has even happened with Russia.

 

[Cormcolash]

You having a fanny attack every five minutes about Ukraine being Nazis apparently trumping the fact that civilians are being attacked by a huge military force just feeds into that disinformation campaign.

Where did I do this? Please point it out there.

 

[seanc]

Yeah, I think it's pretty much the case though that the nazi ones aren't the ones that would be moving over this way to try a different kind of life. The nazi ones will be the ones that don't leave Ukraine and join the army before anything has even happened with Russia.

Yeah I get that, but I have met a broad spectrum of Russian/Baltic/Central European/Eastern European/Slavic/Whateveryoulike people over the years. They all say the same thing. And I have been looking at this madness ever since I was in Russia, in 2013, thinking "fuck", worrying whether or not I'd get thrown into a gulag or something. What would stop them? My lack of assets I assume. My worries were overblown of course, but the fear was real for me at the time.

I've even met Russians in Russia. Imagine that.

 

[rettucs]

Without staying up all night typing on a phone, Dugin’s main strategy is disinformation warfare over long periods of time - he was the one who put in place this idea of blatantly saying your enemy is doing the exact thing you’re guilty of (Ukraine was committing genocide against Russians, Ukrainians are Nazis, Ukraine was looking to take over Russian land, etc.), destabilisation of enemy governments, and the building of a Greater Russia where no price is too high to pay for it. He is literally the guy that Steve Bannon imagined himself being when he was wanking over a picture of Hitler.

You having a fanny attack every five minutes about Ukraine being Nazis apparently trumping the fact that civilians are being attacked by a huge military force just feeds into that disinformation campaign. I’m not saying the far right aren’t involved in Ukraine, or that the Ukrainian government or military are are all great guys, but there are two people in my timelines calling Ukraine Nazis - you and Putin. Sorting out the Nazis from the rest of the crowd kind of takes a back seat to stopping a nuclear power run by Nazis, who seem to only be the bad guys in your books when they’re Ukrainian. Or maybe I’m just missing the nuance of your repeated “Yeah, but Ukraine has Nazis!” posts?

100% this. I think its generally accepted there are plenty of pricks in Ukraine and thats been highlighted on here for a while. Those pricks are not the cause of what Russia are doing. Also, it was generally accepted that there was merit in Putin's point about his not wanting NATO creeping right up to his doorstep. But that sympathy has completely disintegrated by now. The only thing that matters now is that is that Russian Hitler is unleashing the full might of the Russian army on their neighbour for absolutely no good reason at all. People who have nothing to do with anything to do with the cunts @Cormcolash is obsessed with, are getting killed or displaced.

The analogy made by @seanc with Ireland is spot-on. I remember during the Brexit shite one of the Tory leave cunts trying to liken Britain's leaving the EU with one of the ex-USSR states leaving the USSR. The backlash was fucking huge. Moscow have, throughout their history, been absolute tyrants to anyone who has even a shred of their own identity, and they're fucked if they're letting people speak their own language. They loaded people from Romania, Hungary, Lithuania, etc onto trains and shipped them to Siberia, for no reason whatsoever. Internment anyone? And something people in the North often, rightly, say is that people who don't live in the north and who didn't live through the troubles, have no fucking clue what it was like, or what the nuances of day-to-day life were like. And thats no different here, in ex-USSR states. People in the west have no clue about the disdain people feel towards Moscow for the atrocities of the past. And that hatred and shared history is something that unites those states, and explains why they are the ones leading the calls for sanctions, action, support, etc, for Ukraine.

I can totally relate to how Latvians (and I know 10s to 100s of them by now) feel towards Russia because it is similar to how the Irish feel towards Britain (and by Britain, I mean the establishment, not average Brits on the street who are generally sound). I say 'similar', but not the same, because Ireland will never again be invaded by the Brits. Here in the Baltics they fully expect Russia to try it on at some point in the future. I don't think we can appreciate the anxiety that causes.

And, on Finland, I work with a guy from there. Lets not underestimate the level of hatred the Finns have towards Russia (btw, @Cormcolash, plenty of nazis in Finland too, AND they're talking about joining NATO - should Putin attack them also?). Finland take great pride in having defeated Russia in a war. They hold no fear of Moscow and Moscow's threatening Finland off NATO is only going to serve to push them into it.

There are many NATO countries bordering Russia so Putin's argument about having NATO on his doorstep is a bit weak. His issue, for now, is specifically with Ukraine. If he gets his way there, do you think he'll stop at that? Maybe, but people here don't believe that.

 

[egg_]

One of Putin’s best mates and top advisers regarding Ukraine (including the annexation of Crimea) is a Nazi:

Aleksandr Dugin - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Yikes. It's hard to believe people like this exist

 

[magicbastarder]

never spotted this before, a B52 over the irish sea on flightradar24. interesting callsign.