The Russian invasion of Ukraine (2 Viewers)

[therealjohnny]

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

Impossible

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[pete]

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[Unicron]

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They'll be after them for the motor tax on it at some point though.

 

[Cormcolash]

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.

For some bizarre reason, both yourself and perhaps Cornu seem to have formed this quite strange impression that I am somehow implying that it's okay for Putin to invade places because there are nazis in those places.
At no point have I said anything even remotely similar to this assumption that you both seem to be making.
All I have said is that the Ukrainian Army is run by nazis, and I for one can't see how fighting for and with nazis could ever be justified. And I've pointed out that with constant US-led Western aggression towards Russia for most of the last 3 decades, it probably shouldn't be that surprising that they might react at some point, considering that they've been saying they would for the last 15 years or so.
I didn't say anything about the state of Russia, Russian history, Finnish history, etc etc etc etc etc that your big post is all about. You conjured all that stuff up yourself, for reasons. Just as you brought out your quite odd "What about German arms shipments in 1916?" question, as if what Germany were doing whilst in the middle of WWI somehow relates to things.
There is a marked and very well-documented 'political polarity' in many parts of Eastern Europe, most especially former Iron Curtain countries, where a lot of people are essentially of the opinion "The nazis were okay because the Soviets won in the end and they did much worse to us", leading a lot of people to find affiliating with nazi stuff 'okay'. The far-right in Eastern Europe loves this attitude, they encourage it and it helps them grow their support to the extent that they can actually get elected in some places, like Ukraine and Hungary. It's an attitude that is also usually a prime tenet in the far-right political groups in Germany. You can also see it all over the fan bases of football clubs from Eastern Europe, which are full of fucking nazis (including many Zenit St. Petersburg supporters, or FC Racism as I prefer to call them, who think that xenophobic racism and hate is all grand, but would never actually follow nazi aesthetics because it's St. Petersburg).

Anyway look I guess I can put it simply for you:

Putin invasion = bad
Ukrainian army = bad nazis
Nazis = always bad, always
Ukrainian government = Pretty horrible nationalists
Putin = shit
Baltic states = quite a lot of nazis, but at least they aren't running the place
Finland = also a good lot of nazis, but very much in the minority there it seems
NATO = most definitely bad, simply a tool of US aggression usually disguised as 'peace-keeping'
US = not currently in the middle of invading a foreign country for the first time in what, 70 years? But still bad.

Pointing out that other shit is also bad, has been bad for years, and doesn't really seem to be getting any better, and mainstream media and 'the West' doesn't seem to give much of a fuck about all these other bad things for some strange reason = fair enough.

 

[egg_]

Anyway look I guess I can put it simply for you

I think the disconnect here is you're saying that "X==bad" for all values of X, which is kind of annoying when we're here playing the game of "what's to be done about Russia invading Ukraine?". What's to be done, @Cormcolash ? What's the One Simple Trick we can do to fix it all (and you have to start from here, not use a time machine to make the anarchists win the Spanish Civil War)?

 

[rettucs]

NATO = most definitely bad, simply a tool of US aggression usually disguised as 'peace-keeping'

it was of its time but has arguably out-stayed its welcome.

however, given what Putin's at now, if NATO didn't exist, do you think the Baltic states would still be independent?

 

[nuke terrorist]

I think the disconnect here is you're saying that "X==bad" for all values of X, which is kind of annoying when we're here playing the game of "what's to be done about Russia invading Ukraine?". What's to be done, @Cormcolash ? What's the One Simple Trick we can do to fix it all (and you have to start from here, not use a time machine to make the anarchists win the Spanish Civil War)?

disband NATO and tell the EU to not get involved would be good.
the west got involved in a very vulnerable country than no strategic importance to them but huge importance to Russian security.

the term 'nazi' has thrown around too much on this thread but other than that Cormac has the best backgound knowledge of anyone posting on this topic.

this video posted by flashback last night is a lecture from 2015 by international relations Prof. John Mearsheimer and deserves another go here:

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I agreed with nearly everything said here even down to the one thing he got wrong. Mearsheimer also believed Putin would never invade as he was too smart and it would have catastrophic repercussions for Russia.
but Putin is a psychopathic megalomaniac fool unfortunately.
the lecture ends at about 45 minutes and then Mearsheimer takes questions.
far right nationalism and Russia's memories of nazi WW II genocide are dealt with especially in the last ten minutes of questions.

where do we go from here? I don't know

 

[taubstumm]

three core questions on ukrainian nazis as justification for invasion:

- is it sincere?
- is it credible?
- does it justify the actions undertaken?

so, each in turn:
is it sincere? i.e., when putin says that he’s doing all of this because of nazis, is he being truthful? let’s just say that it seems... unlikely. (my read on why he would pick this line is that the communist party is still a significant force in russian politics and society, and so he needs to keep them on board — so, blame nazis, problem solved — but that putin’s ultimate motivations are national-chauvinist)

is it credible? this is the other side of the coin. are there actually ukrainian nazis? the answer, unfortunately, is yes. but how many? in what positions of power? with what real points of leverage? on this, I again find the pretext pretty dubious: there were many more far-right supporters of the *last* ukrainian government (poroshenko’s kleptomaniac regime). there are still nazis in ukraine, they still have power, you still have things like the azov lunatics being part of the official army structure, etc. but again I find the nazi angle overcooked, to say the least.

does it justify the actions undertaken? i.e., even if the nazi angle is both sincere and credible, does it justify the biggest land war in europe in 80 years? short answer, I would say, is... no.

related points:
- the real danger of having nazis in ukraine is that they are effectively fronts for cia weapons to flow into the country. that’s a whole other discussion.
- claiming to “denazify” a place led by a jewish president is... quite a wrinkle.
- putin is basically a 19th-century romantic nationalist, with nuclear weapons. he probably wants some kind of quasi-imperial uniting of the three russias — great, little, and white (i.e., russia, ukraine, belarus).

and having said all of that, I still think that the ultimate deep cause of this whole thing is still nato expansion. but the immediate responsibility still rests on one man in the kremlin.

 

[hydromancer]

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[Cormcolash]

I think the disconnect here is you're saying that "X==bad" for all values of X, which is kind of annoying when we're here playing the game of "what's to be done about Russia invading Ukraine?". What's to be done, @Cormcolash ? What's the One Simple Trick we can do to fix it all (and you have to start from here, not use a time machine to make the anarchists win the Spanish Civil War)?

There's a lot of things to be done, a lot of ways to send aid that isn't just more guns and shit. The sanctions are a good idea, but you also have to look at them and say "Do the rich people even feel it?"
Basically everything that is 'to be done' is already too late, the situation is already totally fucked and sending more guns over there sure isn't going to make it any better, and applying sanctions that affect millions of normal people in Russia without really doing too much damage to the actual oligarchs whilst continuing to completely ignore all the dirty tax haven money going through the likes of Ireland from all over the world, it's just kind of bullshit isn't it?

Like, there's a lot of things that can have and are getting sanctioned that are fair enough. It's just every time I hear sanctions etc etc like literally the first thing I think is "And what about Saudi Arabia then?"

Fuck it, then I'm like "What about fucking Denis O'Brien then?"

 

[Cormcolash]

it was of its time but has arguably out-stayed its welcome.

however, given what Putin's at now, if NATO didn't exist, do you think the Baltic states would still be independent?

Well I'm pretty sure NATO hasn't stopped Putin going in to the Baltic states really

 

[magicbastarder]

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[flashback]

These sanctions aren't going away in a week or two are they? At this point the only thing that's going to roll back anything is total capitulation from Putin. And we've covered this, that's not going to happen.

As cratered as the Russian economy is now, a thousand things similar to @magicbastarder 's post are going to happen over the short to medium term. Abramovich is flogging Chelsea while he can (although it's not clear why he's even allowed be involved). Supply chain stuff is just going to vanish over the next couple of weeks within Russia. Russian people are going to notice, regardless of what RT etc broadcast.

Let's say Russia magically overruns Ukraine tomorrow, and all the Ukrainians magically fall into line and don't run a well armed, coordinated, long running campaign. And let's say no further sanctions are put in place. The sanctions already in place are not going anywhere, and Russia is a basket case. Russian people are going to be put under rapidly increasing pressure over time, the oligarchs are already being at least mildly inconvenienced.

I don't see a way out of this other than Russian forces out of Ukraine, which imply Putin is gone. There's one person in the way of normality returning to Russia, and there's already an oligarch publicly claiming he'll pay a million USD to anyone who kills him.

 

[magicbastarder]

the main reason i post this (it's basically a 10 minute long video version of the twitter thread on aviation i posted) is that at 7:49 in, i discovered that aeroflot is (or was) the official carrier for man utd. how did that happen?

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[nuke terrorist]

the main reason i post this (it's basically a 10 minute long video version of the twitter thread on aviation i posted) is that at 7:49 in, i discovered that aeroflot is (or was) the official carrier for man utd. how did that happen?

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Man Utd FC cancelled the Aeroflot official carrier deal last week (before the air space blockade on Russia) and flew to Madrid to play Atletico on a plane they chartered themselves.
Aeroflot did little business out of the UK, so it was just international advertising.
lots of dodgy airline companies sponsor sports teams Etihad, Emirates etc.

cycling teams have particularly has awful sponsors - Bahrain, UAE-Emirates, Astana (Kazakhstan), Israel to name but the state ones. there's huge amounts of sports events in Saudi, Bahrain, UAE, Qatar nowadays.

 

[pete]

Under attack, Ukraine's musicians become war reporters and military fundraisers

How Ukraine's musicians are countering Russian propaganda by documenting the invasion for their followers.

www.bbc.com

 

[rettucs]

Well I'm pretty sure NATO hasn't stopped Putin going in to the Baltic states really

please feel free to elaborate on this.

 

[rettucs]

Basically everything that is 'to be done' is already too late, the situation is already totally fucked and sending more guns over there sure isn't going to make it any better, and applying sanctions that affect millions of normal people in Russia without really doing too much damage to the actual oligarchs whilst continuing to completely ignore all the dirty tax haven money going through the likes of Ireland from all over the world, it's just kind of bullshit isn't it?

disagree. On weapons, this is more than Ukraine fighting Russia for the sake of Ukraine. This is Ukraine fighting Russia for all of Eastern Europe. Again, this is why countries over here have been to the fore in supporting Ukraine. Ukraine's fight is their fight, but they can't actively take part. They can only help by providing resources.

And, while its awful for the average Russian on the street who hates Putin as much as most of us here, its not half as bad as it is for your average Ukrainian (I work with many of these). What's happening to the Russian public will have one of two outcomes. Either they'll get angry and will rise up, or else they'll hate the source of the sanctions and go running to Putin (highly unlikely).

Like, there's a lot of things that can have and are getting sanctioned that are fair enough. It's just every time I hear sanctions etc etc like literally the first thing I think is "And what about Saudi Arabia then?"

Fuck it, then I'm like "What about fucking Denis O'Brien then?"

I completely agree but its not the time for whataboutery. To suggest that Russians shouldn't be sanctioned because Saudi isn't, is unhelpful.

 

[egg_]

What's happening to the Russian public will have one of two outcomes. Either they'll get angry and will rise up

IMO the Russian people being prompted by sanctions to rise up and topple Putin is pure fantasy. His political position might be weakened by sanctions, which might allow a rival to take over, but even that's a long shot.

Ukraine's best shot is to come up with some concessions to Russia that'll allow them to withdraw without losing too much face BEFORE the the land army gets to Kiev

 

[rettucs]

IMO the Russian people being prompted by sanctions to rise up and topple Putin is pure fantasy. His political position might be weakened by sanctions, which might allow a rival to take over, but even that's a long shot.

Ukraine's best shot is to come up with some concessions to Russia that'll allow them to withdraw without losing too much face BEFORE the the land army gets to Kiev

it is while he still controls the army and the police. Once he starts to lose his grasp on them, and the sanctions affect them and their families every bit as much, all bets are off.

Agreed though, what you suggest is the most plausible way out of this. Failing that it will have to be a combination of someone powerful, or the army themselves, ousting Putin, and getting the public on their side. The problem with this is that anyone powerful enough to do this, is likely to be as corrupt as fuck.