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 In front the Rus embassy, on a joint Belarus/Ukrainian demo in Warsaw. Very unparliamentary and lots of physical activities - kto nie skacze ten moskal!
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Feb 27, 2022 17:13
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punishedkissinger posted:Putin literally released a statement saying he's doing this to rebuild the Russian empire, even using Tsarist language to do so lol That's not actually what he said but you do you.
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Feb 27, 2022 17:13
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Tomn posted:You're not wrong that Putin mostly has bad choices available now, but the thing is none of these choices needed to be presented to him in the first place if he'd made the initial choice "Not to invade the Ukraine (after saying he wouldn't)." quote:I was thinking of Finland and Sweden looking to join up, as well as the Ukraine's own borders with with NATO states. I suppose you could consider Ukraine to act as a buffer, but is that worth all of NATO furiously rearming, including Germany, and acting with far greater hostility towards Russia? quote:But the thing is, this argument hinges on "Gaining power in the old SSRs" being a worthwhile goal in and of itself - if we accept that as something worth pursuing at all costs then yes, maybe one could argue Putin is acting rationally towards that goal. But IS it really worth the cost? Is becoming an international pariah state, tanking your economy, and committing your army to a long occupation for the sake of gaining influence over old countries your predecessor state used to control a rational decision in and of itself? If you read Putin's speeches on his own worldview his answer to this is clearly yes. Putin personally considers the break-up of the Soviet republics "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century" to quote one of his speeches. From his 2005 speech: quote:Let me remind you again of how modern Russian history began. First of all, it should be acknowledged, and I have spoken of this before, that the collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century. And for the Russian people, it was a real drama. Tens of millions of our citizens and fellow-countrymen found themselves outside the Russian Federation. Moreover, the epidemic of disintegration spread to Russia itself. Citizens' savings lost their value. The old ideals were destroyed. Many institutions were disbanded or simply hastily reformed. The country's integrity was disturbed by a terrorist intervention and the ensuing capitulation of Khasavyurt. Dante fucked around with this message at 17:32 on Feb 27, 2022 |
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Feb 27, 2022 17:13
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https://twitter.com/olliecarroll/status/1497944338457939973 for context: https://twitter.com/ASLuhn/status/1497930298696376323 commentary: https://twitter.com/samagreene/status/1497788938341298176 (on a theme of "drawbacks of lying to your own country on your intentions just so that you can pull off some global diplomatic liberal-owning"...) For all that, I don't feel that THE
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Feb 27, 2022 17:14
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surf rock posted:I was seeing reports on ABC a little earlier this morning that last night's attacks were focused on Kharkiv, not Kyiv. I'm worried about a scenario where Kharkiv falls, and then that northeastern prong of the invasion + the southeastern prong that seems to have had the most success of any element of the Russian attack can each hit and try to roll up the flanks of Ukraine's line along the DPR/LPR. But then like, Russia would need to leave forces in Kharkiv too, otherwise in what sense was it really captured.
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Feb 27, 2022 17:15
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Mokotow posted:
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Feb 27, 2022 17:16
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steinrokkan posted:I'm using your logic, and what it means for Putin in terms of inevitable consequences of his own actions. I don't know that I've called anyone a worm to be squashed, but FWIW I do think what you said has been the intention of at least a faction of the West this whole time, and that some of them are glad Russia invaded so they had the opportunity. To be clear, I'm not suggesting they duped Putin into it or anything--he's a big boy and he's responsible for his actions, and he did this himself. But I fully believe there are people in Western capitals who are thrilled to see this unfold.
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Feb 27, 2022 17:17
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 I think someone is fishing for Russian subs in the North Sea.
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Feb 27, 2022 17:18
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This legend! png изображения Oh poo poo another Belarusian demo emerged from down the street! 
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Feb 27, 2022 17:18
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Dante posted:I'm not entirely sure what you mean by that. Ukraine's realignment with the west is a huge threat to Putin and he's been aggressively trying to stop the former USSR republics that are still in Russia's sphere of influence from realigning. It was a success in Georgia and he still occupies 20% of that country. This current situation looks like a miscalcuation, though I think there's no way Putin would accept Ukraine becoming a NATO member (because he's a dictator, not being that's a current opinion). Something that confuses me is why he didn't just stay the course with keeping a frozen conflict in the east with Donetsk and Luhansk. It was fulfilling the purpose of keeping Ukraine out of the western orbit, Russia's most important strategic concern, the Crimea, was well under their control and it didn't even seem like it was costing the Russians that much to maintain it. I mean, I thought the whole idea of Frozen conflict is that nothing is really changing. People have talked about the cutting of various connections between the Crimea and Ukrainian mainland and the problems that created, but was it so pressing the only response was all out invasion?
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Feb 27, 2022 17:18
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steinrokkan posted:If we're dealing in balance of power politics, it's time to act accordingly and show Russian government in terms they understand that there's no "balance of power" between them and the West and that they are a tinpot dictatorship, a wriggling worm waiting to be squashed with extreme prejudice. Then they will wish they never brought this kind of logic back into European politics. What would you propose? Rolling in tanks into Ukraine and evicting his forces from Ukrainian soil? He will use nuclear weapons at that point, you should take his warning at face value.
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Feb 27, 2022 17:19
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khwarezm posted:Has Magomed Tushayev been killed for sure? I'm seeing the contrarian left parts of Twitter say its just more incorrect propaganda, but then those guys were saying 'Lol, Russia's not going to invade you idiots, its just State department propaganda' a week ago. If he's not dead then he could easily take a video of himself laughing at them. Then Ukraine supporters claims would be exposed as obvious clumsy propaganda and Russia and their supporters would crow about it smugly and cast doubt on everything they have said as a result. See Zelensky making a video to expose Russian propaganda that he fled like a coward. Since they've not done that either they believe allowing people to think one particular guy is dead gives them some sort of tactical advantage, or he's dead and they can't.
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Feb 27, 2022 17:20
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The owner of Telegram threatened to shut down Russian and Ukrainian channels, but then almost immediately had to walk it back. Telegram seems to be the main source of a lot of the videos we are seeing, so I'm glad he backed down https://twitter.com/KevinRothrock/status/1497966703157911559?t=bG-GQeyjV8HU4dexGjawxg&s=19
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Feb 27, 2022 17:23
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https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1497968395295158276?s=20&t=8WSCSTaJLTbf_xDoXeD1Jg
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Feb 27, 2022 17:23
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khwarezm posted:Something that confuses me is why he didn't just stay the course with keeping a frozen conflict in the east with Donetsk and Luhansk. It was fulfilling the purpose of keeping Ukraine out of the western orbit, Russia's most important strategic concern, the Crimea, was well under their control and it didn't even seem like it was costing the Russians that much to maintain it. I mean, I thought the whole idea of Frozen conflict is that nothing is really changing. I assume it's because he doesn't see Ukraine as a legitimate country. Therefore, why not go for all of it? I mean, what you're stating would have been the smart thing for Putin to do
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Feb 27, 2022 17:25
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Airconswitch posted:From gps.gov: More than that it was a really primitive system and wouldn't be an issue in modern times. It just randomized the time a little bit, so knowing any fixed point of any sort was enough to correct for the error. High end stuff like GPS on boats or airplanes look for additional signals, low end consumer stuff like google maps navigation all error corrects by just modeling what it thinks you are doing (if you are driving down a road it assumes you will continue down that road and not fly at 400 miles into the nearby woods).
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Feb 27, 2022 17:25
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The American jourmalist picked up by Russian police is free: https://twitter.com/mattb0401/status/1497968567052029952
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Feb 27, 2022 17:25
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It hasn't mattered since GLONASS and, more recently, Galileo launches. The GPS satellites are just transmitters, so they won't report Russian movements even if they pick up the signal. The satellites just transmit a time signal, and the receiver does math to calculate a position.
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Feb 27, 2022 17:25
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If he feels like he can say this publicly, then Putin's well and truly hosed
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Feb 27, 2022 17:25
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khwarezm posted:Something that confuses me is why he didn't just stay the course with keeping a frozen conflict in the east with Donetsk and Luhansk. It was fulfilling the purpose of keeping Ukraine out of the western orbit, Russia's most important strategic concern, the Crimea, was well under their control and it didn't even seem like it was costing the Russians that much to maintain it. I mean, I thought the whole idea of Frozen conflict is that nothing is really changing. It may be the fact that the Ukrainians hosed the water supply in Crimea by shutting off the canals that feed it with water. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-03-19/russia-vs-ukraine-crimea-s-water-crisis-is-an-impossible-problem-for-putin Combined this with the fact that Putin probably figured Germany was too dependant on Russian energy and would roadblock NATO attempts to help Ukraine so he rolled the dice.
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Feb 27, 2022 17:26
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Revelation 2-13 posted:I still think it's some sort of brain damage/dementia. Putins greatest success in the last 30 years has probably been his abilitity to play the diplomatic and information warfare game in a way that help split european interests apart, by sowing dissent, sponsoring extremists etc. financial entanglements and so on. Some would argue that it played a not insignificant role in brexit for example. No-one wanted to risk their relationship with russia over his sponsporing of regime changes all over easten europe. This ukrainian war completely ruins all that work. Europe probably hasn't been this united since 1944 and while a lot of it will crumble as soon as different national interests takes over again; bridges are being built and relationships are being made right now, at an institutional level, that'll probably last. The reaction to crimea should probalby have been his hint. Even nato has gone from being an annoying footnote, only really relevant because trump tried to use it as a blackmail tool, to otherwise entirely diplomatically oriented people thinking about increasing military budgets for nato contributions. It's like the biggest single geopolitical miscalculation in ages probabky. Also, it was one a lot political analysts and so on (as well as the most pro russia posters itt) were like "there is no way he actually attacks, it's such a bad idea. He is not that stupid.". Putin did something very similar in Georgia in 2008, which the west largely left alone and Russia still formally occupies 20% of it. There were western reactions to the annexation of Crimea, the first annexation on the continent since WWII, but they were within what Russia could handle. Similarly Russia has been engaged in military operations and creating separatist republics in Ukraine for several years now. I think Putin is displeased with how this has united Europe, but I also don't think anyone predicted it would to such an extent since Putin has been on this trajectory for a long time. On the other hand it's a lot more important for Putin to stop the spread of democracy and western realignment than how Europe views itself. The countries in EU/NATO were lost to the Russian sphere of influence already. khwarezm posted:Something that confuses me is why he didn't just stay the course with keeping a frozen conflict in the east with Donetsk and Luhansk. It was fulfilling the purpose of keeping Ukraine out of the western orbit, Russia's most important strategic concern, the Crimea, was well under their control and it didn't even seem like it was costing the Russians that much to maintain it. I mean, I thought the whole idea of Frozen conflict is that nothing is really changing. Probably because even after the annexation of Crimea and the not-so-hidden sponsorship of seperatist republics Ukraine was still on a path to western realignment. The military in Ukraine has been supplied and trained to a much greater extent than before 2014. Putin explicitely stated he wants to demilitarize all of Ukraine. Putin probably feared that just taking the Donbas region (similarly to how it played out in Georgia) wouldn't be enough to stop the remainder of Ukraine from eventually fully becoming a western-aligned democracy. Putin has tried pretty much everything to stop this, including straight-up assassination attempts on western-oriented presidential candidates. Dante fucked around with this message at 17:31 on Feb 27, 2022 |
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Feb 27, 2022 17:26
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Feb 27, 2022 17:26
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Zelensky speaking now. Paying 100k hrv to soldiers. I'm probably off Man he's so good at this. https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1497971483129397250?s=20&t=8WSCSTaJLTbf_xDoXeD1Jg
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Feb 27, 2022 17:27
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khwarezm posted:Something that confuses me is why he didn't just stay the course with keeping a frozen conflict in the east with Donetsk and Luhansk. It was fulfilling the purpose of keeping Ukraine out of the western orbit, Russia's most important strategic concern, the Crimea, was well under their control and it didn't even seem like it was costing the Russians that much to maintain it. I mean, I thought the whole idea of Frozen conflict is that nothing is really changing. From a purely cynical perspective I think he either waited too long (maybe because he thought Trump would effectively kill NATO and make it a moot point?) or should have just sat on it and waited to see if the West tore itself apart in the future still, but I think he saw the balance of power moving against him with military cooperation between Ukraine and the West and panicked and/or thought he'd get a domestic political benefit from acting now (which seems like a massive miscalculation if that is what he thought). Re: the waiting too long part of that, I think the supplies Ukraine received even in the last couple months are clearly being put to good use, but I also just don't think Trump would have had the ability or inclination to pull NATO together to agree on such wide ranging multilateral sanctions. I don't mean this from a 'he's a Russian puppet' #resistance talking point, just that even the language of Western idealism was totally foreign to him, so I don't see him using it to rally everyone together.
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Feb 27, 2022 17:28
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Dante posted:I'm not entirely sure what you mean by that. Ukraine's realignment with the west is a huge threat to Putin and he's been aggressively trying to stop the former USSR republics that are still in Russia's sphere of influence from realigning. It was a success in Georgia and he still occupies 20% of that country. This current situation looks like a miscalcuation, though I think there's no way Putin would accept Ukraine becoming a NATO member (because he's a dictator, not being that's a current opinion). I think we might be talking past each other somehow. Let's start over. You stated that whatever else he is, Putin is currently one of the most strategically savvy autocrats in the world (along with Xi which I personally vehemently disagree with but that's another matter for another thread). My contention is that, assuming that his ultimate goal is the power and security of the Russian state under his leadership, Putin is no longer making savvy choices, and stopped doing so the moment he decided it was a good idea to invade Ukraine. I'm not saying that he'd gone completely cuckoo-pants-on-head, but rather that he was no longer making savvy, well-judged decisions - miscalculations, if you like. I think the main difference between our thinking is that you're identifying "the former SSRs being democracies" as, inherently, a threat to Putin and therefore attempting to prevent them from being a democracy being inherently a rational, intelligent choice. My argument is that even if you accepted that the SSRs being democratic was a threat (I'm not really sure about that myself), that threat only matters in the greater context of Russia's power and security and throwing away your power and security for the sake of eliminating democratic SSRs is spending dollars to gain pennies. It cannot be considered a particularly savvy decision. Hell, with Putin's current position it's an open question how long he'll be able to remain in power even - if he successfully installs a puppet autocracy but gets couped under the pressure of the Russian economy imploding beneath him, would it be worth it for him? Edit: Basically what I'm saying is that you can only say that he's a brilliant mastermind if you accept that his end goals are inherently worth any price. By the same token, if I were elected President of the United States, I might personally believe wholeheartedly that American prosperity rests entirely on the military conquest and direct annexation of all of South America. I may be extremely savvy and rational in my choices of how to go about this, but would I necessarily be correct in my initial assessment that this was worth pissing away America's money, power, and international influence over? Edit edit: Come to think of it, better question: Suppose I'm George Bush. I've decided to invade Iraq because I feel it is inherently worth any cost to topple Saddam and bring democracy to Iraq. Even if I was extremely intelligent in how I went about doing so, would invading Iraq be an intelligent choice merely because I believed the end goal to be worth anything? Tomn fucked around with this message at 17:45 on Feb 27, 2022 |
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Feb 27, 2022 17:29
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Concerned Citizen posted:Well first, Russia will eventually win if it is sufficiently determined to do so. This keeps getting repeated, but I don't think this is true at all anymore. Ukraine currently likely has more men and women in arms than the entire Russian military. While Russia theoretically has a lot more men to conscript, there's no way they will be politically able to even match the numbers Ukraine can, simply because Ukrainians are fighting to defend their homes, while the Russians are still officially only engaged in a "policing operation". Most of the Ukrainian numbers are currently conscripts flailing around with light weapons, but Ukraine's military is currently also being massively recapitalized by the NATO. At the same time, Russia is being cut off from the markets, and access to many crucial goods their own industry cannot produce, and that they would need to build modern weapons. If enough time elapses, I'm pretty sure that Ukrainian forces will be both better equipped and more numerous than what Russia can bring to bear, aside from probably being a lot better motivated. The only hope Russia has for a military solution is to end this fast enough that Ukraine cannot effectively mobilize, or for the west to stop supplying Ukrainians. Unless the Russian airforce unfucks themselves in a spectacular manner over the next week or so, I don't see either of those ever happening. What Putin did here was create a perfect situation for the west to undo him: Make it possible for them to fight him while expending only money, not their own blood. And economically the disparity between the west and Russia is hilarious. Someone needs to put together a bar chart comparing the GDP of Russia + Belarus next to the GDP of all the nations currently supplying Ukraine. If this war is still going on next year, it will look like Ukrainian mechanized groups equipped with every doohickey from American military contractor fever dreams going on offensives against Russian conscripts armed with cold war throwbacks.
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Feb 27, 2022 17:31
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EU commission speaking now about sanctions
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Feb 27, 2022 17:32
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Have we had any verified 'proof of life' type videos from Pres Zelenskyy recently?
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Feb 27, 2022 17:32
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MikeC posted:Until people in this thread learn to understand that their world view (and that of most western leaders) are in direct contrast to classic balance of power politics (that Putin subscribes to), then we will continue to talk past each other. Diplomacy (like any other form of non-coercive dispute resolution) failed precisely because neither side could come to grips with how each other views NATO. It isn't the first time this has happened and it isn't limited to authoritarian regimes (ie the failure of the US to understand the Vietnam conflict as a nationalist struggle rather than a cold war struggle). Getting butt hurt because Sinteres does understand the roots of this conflict and simply doesn't chalk Putin up as 'insane' or a megalomaniac, or wanting to rebuild the Russian empire shouldn't prevent him from posting. We're not talking past each other, we understand Putin ascribes to a great powers war view. The great powers worldview is archaic, imperialist, trash and confining it to the dustbin of history should be a priority for anyone who isn't a fascist trying to relive the glory days. The problem is not that we don't understand you; we understand you. The problem is that you think our disgust is rooted in ignorance, whereas it's rooted in understanding exactly what your position is and being appalled by it.
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Feb 27, 2022 17:33
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Shes Not Impressed posted:Zelensky speaking now. Paying 100k hrv to soldiers. I'm probably off did some quick research (from quora super-reliable lol) and Russian soldiers make around $500 a month. $1500 for the field generals. dudes are going to start just straight up defecting on the field of battle.
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Feb 27, 2022 17:34
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Sinteres posted:I don't know that I've called anyone a worm to be squashed, but FWIW I do think what you said has been the intention of at least a faction of the West this whole time, and that some of them are glad Russia invaded so they had the opportunity. To be clear, I'm not suggesting they duped Putin into it or anything--he's a big boy and he's responsible for his actions, and he did this himself. But I fully believe there are people in Western capitals who are thrilled to see this unfold. You mean to suggest that there might be people interested in seeing a decline in Russia’s ability to act against their interests!?
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Feb 27, 2022 17:35
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Shes Not Impressed posted:Zelensky speaking now. Paying 100k hrv to soldiers. I'm probably off wow, doctors in neighboring countries don't make that much (which is a shameful topic on it's own)
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Feb 27, 2022 17:37
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https://twitter.com/olgatokariuk/status/1497974142360031239?s=20&t=v1BD0KK983D7uuZ9TTXMrg String him up
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Feb 27, 2022 17:37
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Where can one find some good Clancyposts on all this? I wanna understand why Russia doesn't have air superiority.
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Feb 27, 2022 17:38
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Have Some Flowers! posted:Have we had any verified 'proof of life' type videos from Pres Zelenskyy recently? He literally just gave a video address about the peace negotiation attempts, like a few minutes ago.
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Feb 27, 2022 17:38
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The_Franz posted:wow, doctors in neighboring countries don't make that much (which is a shameful topic on it's own) depending on the rules it might be a ploy to drum up international brigades. you just need a passport from any nation to enlist right?
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Feb 27, 2022 17:38
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BIG FLUFFY DOG posted:If he feels like he can say this publicly, then Putin's well and truly hosed Post in that thread says he does that every year so it's nothing new.
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Feb 27, 2022 17:38
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Tuna-Fish posted:This keeps getting repeated, but I don't think this is true at all anymore. Ukraine currently likely has more men and women in arms than the entire Russian military. While Russia theoretically has a lot more men to conscript, there's no way they will be politically able to even match the numbers Ukraine can, simply because Ukrainians are fighting to defend their homes, while the Russians are still officially only engaged in a "policing operation". No, it is definitely still true. One important aspect is that Ukraine must defend every axis of the attack to prevent a strategic collapse. They aren't. While Russian losses are mounting in Kyiv and Kharkiv, the situation in Mariupol is critical. The destruction of Ukrainian forces there, the best equipped and most experienced in their military, will leave the rest of the country effectively indefensible. What is true is that Russia may be forced into hard urban fighting in Kyiv and Kharkiv, which could take weeks or months to resolve. But Russia is a massive country that has chosen, perhaps due to a strategic miscalculation, to commit a relatively small portion of its force to this war. If they are determined to win, they can. It's only a question of what price they are willing to pay in order to do so.
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Feb 27, 2022 17:39
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Tiny Timbs posted:You mean to suggest that there might be people interested in seeing a decline in Russia’s ability to act against their interests!? I meant in the sense that they're content to see whatever happens to Ukraine happen as long as Russia's weakened in the process. It's not like Russia posed a looming threat to the US either way.
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Feb 27, 2022 17:39
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Sinteres posted:I meant in the sense that they're content to see whatever happens to Ukraine happen as long as Russia's weakened in the process. I think it's pretty clear that the West was working as hard as possible to avoid Russia doing any of this though. It's incredibly bad for the world economy and the region.
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Feb 27, 2022 17:41
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