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Biden is explicitly calling for the return of ideologically motivated foreign policy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJ6zsR-mMRA
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# ? Oct 27, 2022 22:13 |
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# ? May 30, 2024 13:48 |
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alex314 posted:Can anyone familiar with Russian laws explain how Uzbek men working in Russia got mobilization summons? Are double citizenship a norm when moving between CIS countries for work? The answer is probably "laws arent real" and if cops and draft officers really need their quotas fulfilled they would write whats needed in the papers and maybe bullshit the migrant worker with a volunteer offer.
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# ? Oct 27, 2022 22:40 |
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alex314 posted:Can anyone familiar with Russian laws explain how Uzbek men working in Russia got mobilization summons? Are double citizenship a norm when moving between CIS countries for work? Dude, they just legalized drafting criminals with "heavy" charges (murder, rape etc) meaning that it was previously completely illegal and noone bat an eye.
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# ? Oct 27, 2022 22:46 |
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Sekenr posted:Dude, they just legalized drafting criminals with "heavy" charges (murder, rape etc) meaning that it was previously completely illegal and noone bat an eye. Drafting criminals I get. Same with volunteers or mercenaries. What I don't get is going all "navy recruitment by kidnapping gang" but in 21st century. I've just assumed those workers got some kind of legal status that made them equal in laws and duties to Russian Citizens. Still it's wild. Imagine EU citizen moving to work in Greece being served army summons since they still do draft AFAIK.
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# ? Oct 27, 2022 23:07 |
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alex314 posted:Drafting criminals I get. Same with volunteers or mercenaries. What I don't get is going all "navy recruitment by kidnapping gang" but in 21st century. I mean it actually makes quite a bit of sense if you just think about it in that Russia just wants as many warm bodies on the front preferably warm bodies that the least amount of people with any power in Russia care about. Like it's a horrible idea for many reason but if you just look at it through those two criteria and nothing else then suddenly it's an excellent idea.
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# ? Oct 27, 2022 23:50 |
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Russian Oligarch-turned-Spy Andrej Jakunin gets parole due to a technicality and our government's inability to climb off Putin's dick for even a second: https://www.nrk.no/tromsogfinnmark/pst-anker-loslatelsen-av-dronesiktede-jakunin-1.16153553 I'd be totally fine with an emergency act denying oligarchs due process, right to an attorney, food/water, etc. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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# ? Oct 28, 2022 00:30 |
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Today is the Day of Liberation of Ukraine from Fascist Invaders, and Zelenskyi's address is very heavy on parallels with WW2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9N0FaNzhmZo (English subtitles are available)
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# ? Oct 28, 2022 00:45 |
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Saladman posted:Sunk cost fallacy, plus as others have said, the hope that the US will get tired of giving money to its MIC to give to Ukraine. Ah hah! Bremen posted:
That makes more sense, and he views US politics as much more fickle and I can see him wanting to wait until Midterms. I think his view is largely incorrect granted politicians might be displeased with the war I fully expect support to continue even if the GOP takes over Congress. Looks like it'll be a while before anything major happens and I suspect it's just going to be slow push from here on out but I genuinely wonder how long he can keep bullshitting his armed forces and the rest of the Country. People will eventually catch on that this is going incredibly poorly and there's no choice but to end the war. Gucci Loafers fucked around with this message at 05:45 on Oct 28, 2022 |
# ? Oct 28, 2022 05:38 |
Russia’s security service works to subvert Moldova’s pro-Western government A trove of sensitive materials obtained by Ukrainian intelligence and reviewed by The Washington Post illustrates how Moscow continues to try to manipulate countries in Eastern Europe quote:CHISINAU, Moldova — When thousands of protesters gathered last month outside Moldova’s presidential palace calling for the country’s pro-Western leader to step down, the man behind the demonstration — an opposition party leader in exile in Israel — soon received plaudits from Moscow. Story continues at link; among other things, Shor, as a proxy, worked with a team of Russian media strategists to develop messaging in aligned television stations that they purchased for him. His assets are also commingled with and protected by Russian oligarchs serving as intermediaries. Moldova, a potentially softer target, is being treated as a potential leverage point against Ukraine and EU unity.
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# ? Oct 28, 2022 07:37 |
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"I would like to quote from Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s famous Harvard Commencement Address delivered in 1978. He said that typical of the West is “a continuous blindness of superiority”– and it continues to this day – which “upholds the belief that vast regions everywhere on our planet should develop and mature to the level of present-day Western systems.” He said this in 1978. Nothing has changed. Over the nearly 50 years since then, the blindness about which Solzhenitsyn spoke and which is openly racist and neocolonial, has acquired especially distorted forms, in particular, after the emergence of the so-called unipolar world. What am I referring to? Belief in one’s infallibility is very dangerous; it is only one step away from the desire of the infallible to destroy those they do not like, or as they say, to cancel them. Just think about the meaning of this word." Darling of the Left Jordan Putinson It is truly remarkable how aspects of Putin's ideology is very much just an amalgamation of the more virulent anti-communist thinkers, and yet somehow still attracts people on the left in the west. FishBulbia fucked around with this message at 08:07 on Oct 28, 2022 |
# ? Oct 28, 2022 08:01 |
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FishBulbia posted:"I would like to quote from Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s famous Harvard Commencement Address delivered in 1978. He said that typical of the West is “a continuous blindness of superiority”– and it continues to this day – which “upholds the belief that vast regions everywhere on our planet should develop and mature to the level of present-day Western systems.” He said this in 1978. Nothing has changed. Wait are you talking about Jordan Peterson? Widely accepted as part of the alt-Right? Who the gently caress thinks he's remotely leftist?
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# ? Oct 28, 2022 08:47 |
Tarezax posted:Wait are you talking about Jordan Peterson? Widely accepted as part of the alt-Right? Who the gently caress thinks he's remotely leftist? No, they’re talking about Vladimir Putin.
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# ? Oct 28, 2022 08:50 |
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Paladinus posted:Today is the Day of Liberation of Ukraine from Fascist Invaders, and Zelenskyi's address is very heavy on parallels with WW2. Goddamn that's a good speech. Totally a pro-click, that right there should be showing up in rhetoric coursework beside Orwell and Letter From A Birmingham Jail as an example of how you use language to make things happen.
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# ? Oct 28, 2022 09:03 |
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cinci zoo sniper posted:No, they’re talking about Vladimir Putin. Oh I didn't really follow Putin's speech earlier so I completely misinterpreted, oops
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# ? Oct 28, 2022 09:15 |
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Really interesting bit from today's UK briefing https://twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status/1585885272440545284 quote:Russia has likely augmented some of its units west of the Dnipro River with mobilised reservists. However, this is from an extremely low level of manning. In September 2022, Russian officers described companies in the Kherson sector as consisting of between six and eight men each. Companies should deploy with around 100 personnel. In the last six weeks there has been a clear move from Russian ground forces to transition to a long-term, defensive posture on most areas of the front line in Ukraine. This is likely due to a more realistic assessment that the severely undermanned, poorly trained force in Ukraine is currently only capable of defensive operations. Even if Russia succeeds in consolidating long-term defensive lines in Ukraine, its operational design will remain vulnerable. To regain the initiative, it will need to regenerate higher quality, mobile forces which are capable of dynamically countering Ukrainian breakthroughs and conducting their own large-scale offensive operations. I had to smirk a bit about the word choice of "regenerate" to indicate that they need to train up their forces to an acceptable level. "What, are they going to shoot some 48 year old butcher from the provinces, and have him turn into a 24 year old Spetsnaz wonderwarrior ala Doctor Who?" But still. 6-8% combat strength????
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# ? Oct 28, 2022 10:32 |
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FishBulbia posted:"I would like to quote from Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s famous Harvard Commencement Address delivered in 1978. He said that typical of the West is “a continuous blindness of superiority”– and it continues to this day – which “upholds the belief that vast regions everywhere on our planet should develop and mature to the level of present-day Western systems.” He said this in 1978. Nothing has changed. That Solzhenitsyn's speech is a great insight into Putin's ideology. Even the quoted part, when in context, is pretty revealing. Here's the entire thing if anyone's interested. https://www.solzhenitsyncenter.org/a-world-split-apart First, Solzhenitsyn asserts that formerly colonised countries are getting too uppity, while Western powers think they can reason with them and bring them to their own level. quote:Relations with the former colonial world now have switched to the opposite extreme and the Western world often exhibits an excess of obsequiousness, but it is difficult yet to estimate the size of the bill which former colonial countries will present to the West and it is difficult to predict whether the surrender not only of its last colonies, but of everything it owns, will be sufficient for the West to clear this account. This, of course, perfectly mirror's Putin's rhetoric about Russia creating Ukraine, and the general narrative of Soviet Ukraine being heavily subsidised by Russia, while modern Ukraine always tries to give Russia 'the bill' for Holodomor and oppression. Then Solzhenitsyn explains that playing nice with your ideological enemy is misguided, and no real change or compromise is possible without violence. quote:The anguish of a divided world gave birth to the theory of convergence between the leading Western countries and the Soviet Union. It is a soothing theory which overlooks the fact that these worlds are not at all evolving toward each other and that neither one can be transformed into the other without violence. Besides, convergence inevitably means acceptance of the other side’s defects, too, and this can hardly suit anyone. Solzhenitsyn later goes on a long rant about how too much freedom in the form of horror movies and bad music makes the West immoral, soft, and that's why they fail to enact real change in the world, as they fail to live up to their own ideals. So what does he think is the right way to fight for freedom? quote:In spite of the abundance of information, or maybe partly because of it, the West has great difficulty in finding its bearings amid contemporary events. There have been naïve predictions by some American experts who believed that Angola would become the Soviet Union’s Vietnam or that the impudent Cuban expeditions in Africa would best be stopped by special US courtesy to Cuba. Kennan’s advice to his own country—to begin unilateral disarmament—belongs to the same category. If you only knew how the youngest of the officials in Moscow’s Old Square [Communist Party HQ] roar with laughter at your political wizards! As to Fidel Castro, he openly scorns the United States, boldly sending his troops to distant adventures from his country right next to yours. That's right, it's the damned pacifists who are to blame! Should have napalmed Vietnam even more to show real moral conviction. Putin basically sees Ukraine as Russia's Vietnam moment. Yeltsyn's turned Russia into a declining immoral clone of America, while America itself has actually become bold and openly militaristic like Solzhenitsyn's version of Communist countries, and Putin is the one to set things right. Russia, the third Rome, the new Europe, the real inheritor of Western traditions, must make a strong moral stance, must come together and show courage, must continue the war no matter what, or it stands no chance against a stronger enemy later. quote:I have said on another occasion that in the twentieth-century Western democracy has not won any major war by itself; each time it shielded itself with an ally possessing a powerful land army, whose philosophy it did not question. In World War II against Hitler, instead of winning the conflict with its own forces, which would certainly have been sufficient, Western democracy raised up another enemy, one that would prove worse and more powerful, since Hitler had neither the resources nor the people, nor the ideas with broad appeal, nor such a large number of supporters in the West—a fifth column—as the Soviet Union possessed. Some Western voices already have spoken of the need of a protective screen against hostile forces in the next world conflict; in this case, the shield would be China. But I would not wish such an outcome to any country in the world. First of all, it is again a doomed alliance with evil; it would grant the United States a respite, but when at a later date China with its billion people would turn around armed with American weapons, America itself would fall victim to a Cambodia-style genocide. No compromise, no allies, all you need is your own strength, when you fight for the right thing. It's good that the decadent West is against you, it's good that the conniving East doesn't want to materially support you openly. Russia can and must accomplish its military goals alone, or Russians might have to share their victory with potential enemies. Of course, if you read the speech through a different lens, the West should re-discover its moral high ground, send soldiers to fight in Ukraine, destroy and subjugate Russia, China and all other ideologically impure countries, and build a Republican theocratical utopia on Earth.
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# ? Oct 28, 2022 11:16 |
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SirFozzie posted:But still. 6-8% combat strength???? This is obvious bs. Any unit down to 30-50% strength is effectively incapable of operating so then the only reason why Ukraine hasn't taken Kherson yet would be that they just don't want to or Ukrainians are in even worse condition. Neither sounds likely. Like maybe some Russian company had been totally wiped out, but the phrasing in the update is really bad.
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# ? Oct 28, 2022 11:40 |
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I don't think the suggestion is that every Russian unit in Kherson is down to 6-8% strength, more that units are just being observed left to be attritted into nothingness rather than pulled out of the line to be reformed and regenerated.
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# ? Oct 28, 2022 12:00 |
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Things have been pretty quiet recently and with winter on the horizon things might slow down a lot. However, there are some rumours of a breakthrough near Svatove on pro RU channels today: https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1585927104562335745 https://twitter.com/Tendar/status/1585949955843182592 Could be some of Ukraine's last efforts before the bad weather sets in
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# ? Oct 28, 2022 13:57 |
Chalks posted:Things have been pretty quiet recently and with winter on the horizon things might slow down a lot. However, there are some rumours of a breakthrough near Svatove on pro RU channels today: The weather has been bad enough, to hinder off-roading, for 2-3 weeks in parts of it. Nonetheless, starting new major offensive may be more difficult.
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# ? Oct 28, 2022 14:08 |
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The second tweet that talked about a more extensive breakthrough has since been deleted. This seems a lot less reliable now
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# ? Oct 28, 2022 14:24 |
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Ukraine was able to mount some pretty nasty attacks on Russian rear areas and logistics during the last muddy season since it forced the Russians to stick to the roads. Has there been any indication they'll be able to pull off something like that again? Or was that sort've attack method only really practical while the Russians were still attempting to take Kyiv due to the geography or something?
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# ? Oct 28, 2022 14:25 |
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PC LOAD LETTER posted:Ukraine was able to mount some pretty nasty attacks on Russian rear areas and logistics during the last muddy season since it forced the Russians to stick to the roads. It's more likely that if the rear lines of support are attacked it will be by partisans behind the lines. The spring offensives by Russia were less "spearheads" and more "needle-heads," the "fronts" were extremely thin and were barely bigger than the roads they were driving the vehicles on. Now that their axes of advance have widened, so too has the defense zone around logistics and transport.
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# ? Oct 28, 2022 14:30 |
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Chalks posted:Could be some of Ukraine's last efforts before the bad weather sets in To my best understanding this is the bad weather season right now. Things will improve when freezes come and the ground hardens instead of being the soppy mess it is right now.
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# ? Oct 28, 2022 14:59 |
Bashez posted:To my best understanding this is the bad weather season right now. Things will improve when freezes come and the ground hardens instead of being the soppy mess it is right now. It’s going to worse throughout November.
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# ? Oct 28, 2022 15:02 |
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FishBulbia posted:"I would like to quote from Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s famous Harvard Commencement Address delivered in 1978. He said that typical of the West is “a continuous blindness of superiority”– and it continues to this day – which “upholds the belief that vast regions everywhere on our planet should develop and mature to the level of present-day Western systems.” He said this in 1978. Nothing has changed. It makes a lot of sense if you understand that a lot of western leftist movements fall more towards an almost dogmatic religious philosophy rather than an open collection of free thinkers. Adherence to the symbols of communism as expressed by the Soviet union. Actual reality has no bearing on supporting the deity(the idea of the Soviet union) against it's enemy (western capitalists). No nuance or deviation is allowed. Marx is considered a holy scripture rather than a fairly early work of political philosophy. It is an adherence to a dead static ideology rather than a living one. It literally cannot come to terms with the idea that the us does good things.
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# ? Oct 28, 2022 15:14 |
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Pook Good Mook posted:It's more likely that if the rear lines of support are attacked it will be by partisans behind the lines. Yeah that makes some sense, thanks
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# ? Oct 28, 2022 15:14 |
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Barrel Cactaur posted:It makes a lot of sense if you understand that a lot of western leftist movements fall more towards an almost dogmatic religious philosophy rather than an open collection of free thinkers. Adherence to the symbols of communism as expressed by the Soviet union. Actual reality has no bearing on supporting the deity(the idea of the Soviet union) against it's enemy (western capitalists). No nuance or deviation is allowed. Marx is considered a holy scripture rather than a fairly early work of political philosophy. It is an adherence to a dead static ideology rather than a living one. It literally cannot come to terms with the idea that the us does good things. Maybe I'm being charitable, but it's a sore point for me because a professor I otherwise really like basically buys into Russian propaganda about Ukrainians being Nazis(and certainly there are Ukrainians who *are* Nazis) while awkwardly condemning Russia waging a war of aggression while conveniently glossing over the fact that the Russians are more engaged in Fascism and eliminationist rhetoric and action, so it grates on me. Me, I support Ukraine and efforts to hamstring Russia's war effort, because I just think seizing a sovereign nation's territory and waging a war of aggression against a sovereign nation is an objective and inexcusable crime against humanity, even though I have a few misgivings about the Ukrainians. All imperialism is bad, full stop.
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# ? Oct 28, 2022 18:12 |
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I'm sorry, who exactly are "The Ukrainians" here? You have misgivings about the people as a whole?
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# ? Oct 28, 2022 18:39 |
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I feel like anti imperialism as a concept is part of the current international order Putin is against. The view would be similar to WW2 Japan sentiments, where western powers used imperialism to gain power and then used their power to prevent any others from doing the same to challenge that power. Pulling up the ladder. So in essence, the west should let dictators in other regions go unchallenged because mounting any challenge would be hypocrisy. But you know live by the sword, die by the sword. If you want to challenge the current world order you would have to expect people to step in. It also makes me question why anybody would want to support a challenger with so little to offer. I mean kleptocracy and revanchism seems to be all Putin has.
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# ? Oct 28, 2022 18:52 |
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WarpedLichen posted:I feel like anti imperialism as a concept is part of the current international order Putin is against. The view would be similar to WW2 Japan sentiments, where western powers used imperialism to gain power and then used their power to prevent any others from doing the same to challenge that power. Pulling up the ladder. So in essence, the west should let dictators in other regions go unchallenged because mounting any challenge would be hypocrisy.
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# ? Oct 28, 2022 19:00 |
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mllaneza posted:Goddamn that's a good speech. Totally a pro-click, that right there should be showing up in rhetoric coursework beside Orwell and Letter From A Birmingham Jail as an example of how you use language to make things happen. I thought you were over-egging the pudding but drat if that isn't a good speech quote:Evil always ends the same way. The occupier becomes a capitulator. The invader becomes a fugitive. War criminals become defendants, aggression becomes a sentence. Destruction becomes reparations. Enemy equipment becomes museum exhibits. The feats of grandfathers become the victories of grandchildren. Unrelated to that, I bring some more good Tim Snyder content: a short breakdown of the evidence that we can definitively put forward to justify framing this war as genocidal, without needing to get caught up worrying about what is or is not inside Putin's head. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wUWN2am8QI&t=178s
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# ? Oct 28, 2022 19:47 |
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WarpedLichen posted:I feel like anti imperialism as a concept is part of the current international order Putin is against. The view would be similar to WW2 Japan sentiments, where western powers used imperialism to gain power and then used their power to prevent any others from doing the same to challenge that power. Pulling up the ladder. So in essence, the west should let dictators in other regions go unchallenged because mounting any challenge would be hypocrisy. Russia appear to be free to do a lot of imperialism though. They have their colony in Transnistria. The West pulled out when Russia stepped into Syria to safeguard Assad. They have their fiefdom in Libya and their adventures in CAR and Mali. Very little was done when they invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea in 2014 or when they invaded Georgia in 2008. This time around the West is sending substantial aid to Ukraine but is still not directly involved. Putin keeps ranting about a unipolar world but it's not really obvious what precisely he means or believes Russia should be able to do but can't. It's like Putin thinks unipolarity means the US is omnipotent and willing to police every action taken against their interests at any cost and everything Puttin does is an attempt to disprove that misapprehension.
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# ? Oct 28, 2022 20:03 |
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Putin wants a bipolar world again, simple as that. His objection to a unipolar world isn't intrinsic to it, imperialism is fine when Russia does it. His objection is that Russia isn't able to do its imperialism. He'd be fine with a multipolar world with China and others as long as Russia had freedom of action. Nevermind that the "West" had generally been content to give Russia its sphere of influence and clients in Central Asia and the Middle East until Putin directly challenged western influence in Ukraine (I'm glossing over domestic factors and Ukrainian agency) and even then the post-2014 western involvement had been confined to very minor support to the newly anti-Russian government. In a way Putin had his multipolar world, it's just the Russian sphere wasn't big enough for Putin.
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# ? Oct 28, 2022 20:52 |
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Morrow posted:Putin wants a bipolar world again, simple as that. His objection to a unipolar world isn't intrinsic to it, imperialism is fine when Russia does it. His objection is that Russia isn't able to do its imperialism. He'd be fine with a multipolar world with China and others as long as Russia had freedom of action. I just watched Adam Curtis’ new documentary on Russia from 1985-1999 and one of the most fascinating scenes was the original post-Soviet agitator nationalist Zhirinovsky casually stating in the mid-1990s at a campaign event that “we should be working with the US; they control their sphere,” pointing to Central and South America, followed by “and we can righty control ours,” pointing to Africa and Asia. It sounds absurd, but Russian nationalists genuinely believe that they are entitled to control basically the entirety of the Old World.
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# ? Oct 28, 2022 22:11 |
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cinci zoo sniper posted:It’s going to worse throughout November. It's a shame, but the weather is what it is. After all you would have to be a brainless clod to launch a major offensive during the wet and muddy season!
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# ? Oct 28, 2022 23:08 |
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Ikasuhito posted:It's a shame, but the weather is what it is. "We already got through one muddy season earlier this year... What are the odds of there being another one?"
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# ? Oct 29, 2022 00:09 |
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The muddy season means that military offensives will be really difficult until the ground freezes , but on the other hand the longer it lasts the longer Ukraine will have to prepare before civilians are sitting in freezing houses with no electricity.
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# ? Oct 29, 2022 02:19 |
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SirFozzie posted:Really interesting bit from today's UK briefing
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# ? Oct 29, 2022 02:53 |
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# ? May 30, 2024 13:48 |
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FlamingLiberal posted:This is way worse than I had thought regarding Russian strength. There is no chance in hell that they can fill that even partly with conscripts. So many more people are going to continue to die for Putin's bullshit war. The Luhansk counteroffensive is a bit slow because of the conscripts being thrown into the grinder. Need to find the source but basically the Ukrainians consider them threats insofar as they have guns and can shoot, but otherwise they're being used as cannon fodder and die fast. So they're functioning as a speed bump. Which may not be the worst tactic (all considerations about sanctity of life aside), considering the Rasputitsa is coming and that will slow AFU's "surround and cut off" strategy considerably. Edit: Found it: https://www.cnn.com/europe/live-news/russia-ukraine-war-news-10-28-22#h_d32971d137417bdcb969f0e857ce1548 quote:Hayday said the Kremlin had deployed “thousands” of mobilized reservists to stave off the Ukrainian counteroffensive. “There are a lot of newly mobilized personnel in the Luhansk region – thousands of them actually,” he said. “There are already a couple of thousand around Bakhmut, but they die in bulk. The mobilized simply go forward to identify our positions. They will not break through, but they are still people who can pull a trigger and so bullets will be shot in our direction.” OAquinas fucked around with this message at 05:18 on Oct 29, 2022 |
# ? Oct 29, 2022 03:11 |