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Lucy Heartfilia posted:Russia simply has to stop the war against Ukraine and give back the territories occupied by Russian forces. Russia can end this any time. This isn't just semantics. fatherboxx posted:Backing out completely out of East Ukraine would at least release the sanctions chokehold. Crimea is a closed theme and no one is going to hold it against Russia, seeing that just turning it back is impossible in any situation short of the complete collapse of the Russian state. Cingulate fucked around with this message at 14:08 on Dec 17, 2014 |
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Dec 17, 2014 14:02
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Killer-of-Lawyers posted:This thread makes me want to work on making it easier for people in countries like Russia to seek assylum here, at least. It seems to be the easiest change to make. An immigration policy that lets the people that want something better leave. Then you can crush the remainder with out as many casualties. Because I really could care less how ujiko and company fair in all this.
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Dec 17, 2014 14:06
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Cingulate posted:Yes, but is there any way for Putin to do that? The order to back out of the Crimea won't be signed by the personalised collective suffering of the Russian people, but by some dude, and that dude probably needs an incentive to do that - it needs to seem like be the better option to him. Did the West plan for a situation to arise where it would seem like the better option to the person in charge of signing the order? This is why I mentioned only backing out of East Ukraine. It is easy - Putin orders the "advisors" and "vacation soldiers" to go home with all their weapons, acknowledges the intervention, offers honest humanitarian support this time. You can't just getout of Crimea anymore - it would take constitutional arrangement, seeing as it was legally accepted into Russia with all due process. This would mean absolute political suicide for everyone involved, ultimately nullifying the Constitution. Maybe give Crimean Tatars their land - that would be a decent compromise. Even opposition figures Navalny and Khodorkovsky say that it is impossible to give Crimea back even if one of them becomes a president one day - the Russian con was too fast and too good. I doubt that Ukraine wants it anymore, they are going to have hard time rebuilding Donbass. fatherboxx fucked around with this message at 14:13 on Dec 17, 2014 |
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Dec 17, 2014 14:11
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Cingulate posted:Has the West left any exit strategy for Putin, or for some way for Russian who are not Putin to use the situation to turn things around? While giving Putin some way out that saves face might be safer, what can really be offered that wouldn't be considered a concession without basically screwing Ukraine or the rest of Eastern Europe?
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Dec 17, 2014 14:12
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fatherboxx posted:This is why I mentioned only backing out of East Ukraine. So is there any realistic path Putin will back out of what he can back out of? Afterwards, is there any realistic path for something good for Russia coming out of this?
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Dec 17, 2014 14:13
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Gantolandon posted:If anything, being a member of opposition in a Warsaw Pact country was way riskier than in today's Russia. People were detained for that and imprisoned for many years, sometimes even murdered. Mass protests ended up with Soviet military interventions (like in Czechoslovakia in 60s) or with the military seizing power and declaring martial law (Poland in the 80s). Even the whole debacle in Ukraine started because peaceful protesters were shot or sometimes kidnapped and murdered. Forgive me for not pitying poor Russians for not doing anything because protesting is hard, dangerous and doesn't guarantee success. Putin's regime is not an oppressive dictatorship, you see, Kremlin tries very hard to be kinda sorta popular with the majority and is very good at fighting dissention. If you don't see a fight going, doesn't mean there isn't one, what it means is the government has so far been extremely successful at making this fight basically irrelevant.
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Dec 17, 2014 14:13
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Cingulate posted:Call me naive, but stuff like this is said in jest, right? There are a lot of eastern Europeans in this thread with a straight up nationalistic hatred of Russians as far as I can tell. Back when the Ukrainian stuff first started there were posters advocating stuff like an immediate nuclear first strike on Russia.
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Dec 17, 2014 14:13
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Cingulate posted:Call me naive, but stuff like this is said in jest, right? No more in jest than people who'd like to see the South burn, or all every other opinion voiced that involves some group of people being punished or suffering. We've all got people that we have trouble feeling sympathy for. The hard line nationalists that lap up everything about Russia that lead to what happened over this last year? I don't really feel any sympathy towards them. They want to be my enemy anyways. Why should I give them quarter? I don't even feel much sympathy for poo poo heels like them in my own country.
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Dec 17, 2014 14:15
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Cingulate posted:Russia is a place. It doesn't do things. Maybe it's a nation, but nations don't really do things unless you're on a really abstract scale. People do things. For example, Russian people stand in long lines trying to buy things while their currency is dying, and Putting signs things, or maybe he doesn't sign things. Well since we're deconstructing phrases, one should realise that the sanctions weren't really a rational response meant to get Russian troops out of Ukraine, they were meant to satisfy a need among Europeans and Americans to do something, anything, in the face of naked Russian power politics. Since military intervention in Ukraine is out of the quation, what else is there for European and American leaders to do but wage economic warfare? You gotta understand that Russian politics is dominated by nationalism. For a good decade now, Russian leaders have invoked the power of Nationalism, and it has given them tremendous authority and the support of the Russian people. But the thing about Nationalism is that it's not an easy thing to back out of once you start using it. Russian leaders have said that they would fight for the rights of Russian people everywhere, and so here we are with Russian separatists in Ukraine calling on Moscow to honor that pledge. If Moscow would have failed to respond to that call, it would have been a tremendous blow to their prestige and may well have led to the fall from grace of the circle centered around Putin. I don't think there is a way out for Russia in this conflict that could be encouraged with any set of rational incentives.
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Dec 17, 2014 14:18
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blainestereo posted:Putin's regime is not an oppressive dictatorship, you see, Kremlin tries very hard to be kinda sorta popular with the majority and is very good at fighting dissention. If you don't see a fight going, doesn't mean there isn't one, what it means is the government has so far been extremely successful at making this fight basically irrelevant. Killer-of-Lawyers posted:No more in jest than people who'd like to see the South burn, or all every other opinion voiced that involves some group of people being punished or suffering. We've all got people that we have trouble feeling sympathy for. The hard line nationalists that lap up everything about Russia that lead to what happened over this last year? I don't really feel any sympathy towards them. They want to be my enemy anyways. Why should I give them quarter? I don't even feel much sympathy for poo poo heels like them in my own country.
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Dec 17, 2014 14:19
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Friendly Tumour posted:Well since we're deconstructing phrases, one should realise that the sanctions weren't really a rational response meant to get Russian troops out of Ukraine, they were meant to satisfy a need among Europeans and Americans to do something, anything, in the face of naked Russian power politics. Since military intervention in Ukraine is out of the quation, what else is there for European and American leaders to do but wage economic warfare?
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Dec 17, 2014 14:20
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Cingulate posted:That's a direct, and depressing, answer to my question. Eastern Europe is leaking depression yes
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Dec 17, 2014 14:25
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Killer-of-Lawyers posted:No more in jest than people who'd like to see the South burn, or all every other opinion voiced that involves some group of people being punished or suffering. We've all got people that we have trouble feeling sympathy for. The hard line nationalists that lap up everything about Russia that lead to what happened over this last year? I don't really feel any sympathy towards them. They want to be my enemy anyways. Why should I give them quarter? I don't even feel much sympathy for poo poo heels like them in my own country. Generally those people are in fact in jest or just extremely exaggerating to express frustration and are not advocating for genocide and warcrimes.
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Dec 17, 2014 14:25
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I think people should separate their emotions from actual IRL policies they want to see implemented. Nobody gives a gently caress about your sympathies, hell I admit it's pretty hard not to point and laugh in this situation. Karma IS a bitch. But if you're actually unironically rooting for total collapse of a nuclear country, you may have a very simplistic view of the world and might not have weighed all pros and cons.
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Dec 17, 2014 14:37
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And since Finland is Eastern Europe, here's a thing: The Finnish economy will contract 0.4% this year, and grow by a measly 0.8% next year, partly due to the economic sanctions and countersanctions on Russia. Even in the light of the economic consequences, the majority of Finns still support the economic sanctions against Russia. Granted, that was four months ago, but I can't imagine the situation to be much different now. My impression is that most Finns blame our lovely lovely failure of a rainbow coalition government for our current economic problems more than the destruction of Russian export markets.
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Dec 17, 2014 14:39
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Sanctioning a nation isn't war crimes or genocide. I said crush them, not bomb them with nukes. However, I disagree. There's plenty of earnest people that have posted about how this ideology or that ideology should die. People in general love violent solutions. That's why Batman is popular. From an outside perspective, he's a thug. A fascist who uses violence outside of the legal system with no authority. A vigilante. People still love him. People love vigilantes. We really shouldn't. Either way, why should I feel bad for someone like the Russian nationalists loosing their jobs to harsh sanctions if they followed a program to try and get the non nationalists out?
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Dec 17, 2014 14:40
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Killer-of-Lawyers posted:Either way, why should I feel bad for someone like the Russian nationalists loosing their jobs to harsh sanctions if they followed a program to try and get the non nationalists out? There is also the many, many Russians who held no particular hatred for anybody, or at least not more than you do, and are massively suffering.
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Dec 17, 2014 14:54
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Cingulate posted:That's a false dichotomy. Nobody could expect you to either celebrate the situation, or feel bad for awful Russian nationalists. No but you see they didn't immigrate or start a charity for pensioners to undermine the system!
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Dec 17, 2014 14:58
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My Imaginary GF posted:What are you afraid of, and is it really that worse than your grandparents' friends starving to death? You seem like a guy who reads a lot and actually does very little.
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Dec 17, 2014 15:00
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Cingulate posted:That's a false dichotomy. Nobody could expect you to either celebrate the situation, or feel bad for awful Russian nationalists. Which is why I said I wished I could make it so those Russians could get out easier, before enacting sanctions.
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Dec 17, 2014 15:02
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Historically speaking, people did not flee in much worse situations than that.
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Dec 17, 2014 15:03
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You know what is worse than Russian suffering? Ukrainian suffering. The West should put a ton of money into Ukraine to help the fugitives and build a strong economy. What the West is currently doing for Ukraine is bordering on criminal neglect.
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Dec 17, 2014 15:06
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Cingulate posted:Historically speaking, people did not flee in much worse situations than that. That's true, but having the option there would be the right thing to do. In the end some sort of response from the West will happen, people will suffer, and doing something to alleviate some of it is an improvement.
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Dec 17, 2014 15:09
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'Smart Money' (AKA Bloomberg) suggests the most obvious thing for Russia to do is default on their 680 billion dollar debt. Only about 100b of that is bank exposure. Someone pushed the Ruble down to 63.499 at 6 AM, this morning. aaaand we all effed.
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Dec 17, 2014 15:14
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Lucy Heartfilia posted:You know what is worse than Russian suffering? Ukrainian suffering. The West should put a ton of money into Ukraine to help the fugitives and build a strong economy. What the West is currently doing for Ukraine is bordering on criminal neglect.
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Dec 17, 2014 15:14
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Gravel Gravy posted:While giving Putin some way out that saves face might be safer, what can really be offered that wouldn't be considered a concession without basically screwing Ukraine or the rest of Eastern Europe?
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Dec 17, 2014 15:15
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Cingulate posted:I guess so, but isn't that a different issue from getting Putin to stop the occupation of the Ukraine, which the Ukraine probably also needs? Yes, it is separate. I'm for sanctions against Russia, but helping Ukraine is much more important in my opinion.
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Dec 17, 2014 15:17
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Cingulate posted:I guess so, but isn't that a different issue from getting Putin to stop the occupation of the Ukraine, which the Ukraine probably also needs? By the way, this was talked of before. It's Ukraine, not the Ukraine. http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-18233844 quote:Those who called it "the Ukraine" in English must have known that the word meant "borderland", says Anatoly Liberman, a professor at the University of Minnesota with a specialism in etymology. So they referred to it as "the borderland".
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Dec 17, 2014 15:21
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^the more you know.Lucy Heartfilia posted:Yes, it is separate. I'm for sanctions against Russia, but helping Ukraine is much more important in my opinion. Ephemeron posted:Nothing, nor there should be. See, the good thing about having full control of the media and a propaganda machine unbound by limits of reality is that you can save face without getting any real concessions.
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Dec 17, 2014 15:23
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Sheng-ji Yang posted:There are a lot of eastern Europeans in this thread with a straight up nationalistic hatred of Russians as far as I can tell. Back when the Ukrainian stuff first started there were posters advocating stuff like an immediate nuclear first strike on Russia. I believe we've had only one such person here and that one was a German (Lucy Heartfilia (spelling?)).
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Dec 17, 2014 15:27
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Cingulate posted:Is losing Black Sea access and about half the territory not that big of a problem? Honest question, I don't know much about Ukraine. Putin is officially in Ukraine until the occupation of Crimea is ended.
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Dec 17, 2014 15:29
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jonnypeh posted:I believe we've had only one such person here and that one was a German (Lucy Heartfilia (spelling?)). A Pale Horse lamented that USA did not drop a nuclear bomb on USSR to cap off WWII 
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Dec 17, 2014 15:30
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Lucy Heartfilia posted:Putin is officially in Ukraine until the occupation of Crimea is ended. You know what he meant. Ukraine isn't getting Crimea back no matter what happens.
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Dec 17, 2014 15:32
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Sheng-ji Yang posted:There are a lot of eastern Europeans in this thread with a straight up nationalistic hatred of Russians as far as I can tell. Back when the Ukrainian stuff first started there were posters advocating stuff like an immediate nuclear first strike on Russia. In this thread, the people who most rabidly insist on nuking Russia and/or crushing all Russians are usually Americans. I've noticed a sort of a trend that whenever something lovely happens in US, there's a sudden surge of 'gently caress the Russians' posters. (and I have to emphasize, not 'gently caress Russia' which I'd probably agree with, it's specifically 'destroy all Russians')
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Dec 17, 2014 15:33
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What? You think that Ferguson is making me want to distract myself from how lovely my country is by wishing I could crush the Russians? You're reading into things a bit much.
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Dec 17, 2014 15:41
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It was actually pretty funny to watch the change in Russian foreign minister's tone as the ruble fell. Just a week ago it was all dick waving and gently caress you got to protect our interests while yesterday it was all about how Poroshenko is the best choice for the Ukraine, Ukraine should be a united state (not even a federation!), and Europe please please lift them sanctions  .It got Donbass fuckers so spooked that one of theirs head honchos all but admitted Russian military help in an interview. Pretty sure they are very afraid Russia is about to chicken out and abandon them, so they try to make Russia pulling out its forces as face-losing for Putin as possible. Because, you know, without the russian military it's gallows time all across the Donbass  So, if I'm reading the situation correctly, things might turn out all right for Ukraine after all.
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Dec 17, 2014 15:42
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blainestereo posted:It was actually pretty funny to watch the change in Russian foreign minister's tone as the ruble fell. Just a week ago it was all dick waving and gently caress you got to protect our interests while yesterday it was all about how Poroshenko is the best choice for the Ukraine, Ukraine should be a united state (not even a federation!), and Europe please please lift them sanctions
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Dec 17, 2014 15:47
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blainestereo posted:It was actually pretty funny to watch the change in Russian foreign minister's tone as the ruble fell. Just a week ago it was all dick waving and gently caress you got to protect our interests while yesterday it was all about how Poroshenko is the best choice for the Ukraine, Ukraine should be a united state (not even a federation!), and Europe please please lift them sanctions I'm now wondering what Putin will be saying tomorrow. His speech will either confirm your suspicions or deny them. I'm betting they are trying to get the ruble on a higher position before the speech happens.
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Dec 17, 2014 15:48
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my dad posted:In this thread, the people who most rabidly insist on nuking Russia and/or crushing all Russians are usually Americans. I've noticed a sort of a trend that whenever something lovely happens in US, there's a sudden surge of 'gently caress the Russians' posters. (and I have to emphasize, not 'gently caress Russia' which I'd probably agree with, it's specifically 'destroy all Russians') These were the insane genocidal posts I was talking about http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3618446&pagenumber=111&perpage=40#post428466317 quote:At this point I don't give a poo poo anymore about Russia. Raze it to the ground. There is nothing redeemable about the country left. Every thing they touch turns to poo poo they have not had a free government that has functioned in the entire history of their existence. They are simply not capable of democracy which is the very foundation of our modern civilization. The 21st century can not allow despotic power hungry state leaders that force invasions other countries to simply annex them for land to continue to exist. The time to put them down has come. We can not go into another cold war. quote:If Russia does push into eastern ukraine NATO and pretty much every nation in Europe should be ready to go to war. There's a point at which the world can take his particular brand of bullshit no longer. I'm pretty sure Finnin isn't American.
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Dec 17, 2014 15:53
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Karmalis posted:I'm now wondering what Putin will be saying tomorrow. His speech will either confirm your suspicions or deny them. I'm betting they are trying to get the ruble on a higher position before the speech happens. Somehow I doubt he'll say something definitive. It'll all probably be sweet nothings about how the government is on the motherfucker and how the people should unite etc. God, one of the most hateful things about the current state of affairs in Russia is that it is considered perfectly acceptable for the head of nation to communicate exclusively in vague hints and denials.
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Dec 17, 2014 15:58
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