Libluini posted:

I think Putin's plan to wait for Ukraine to freeze in winter may be not working as intended.

fatherboxx posted:

Microphone lady trying too hard

Libluini posted:

I think Putin's plan to wait for Ukraine to freeze in winter may be not working as intended.

On the other hand, the world is hosed.

Rinkles posted:

I like the beebs choice of headline photo

mobby_6kl posted:

This is true BTW, I'm a few hundred Kms to the west but haven't had to turn on the heat yet so far. Or buy winter tires. gently caress you, Putin

kalstrams posted:

I am about 1045 kilometres to the north from Kyiv, and it's second day of snow here. Temperature is barely below freezing.

OddObserver posted:

Actually IIRC Ukraine had a stretch early in month when it got like -10C.

OddObserver posted:

Actually IIRC Ukraine had a stretch early in month when it got like -10C.

Morrow posted:

American Weather Control machines, obviously. The homonazis have found a counter to General Winter.

Mightypeon posted:

And what actually happened:

1: Russia did not intervene in 2004/2005. This was an actually peacefull protest with a strong populist base that actually had sizeable support in the East (Kernes of Kharkov for example) and that largely, if not to 100%, observed the rules established by the Ukrainian consitution.
The "Maidan" was quite different from the orange revolution, both in terms of goals, memberships, employed tactics and the degree of foreign involvement.

2: Russia learned a lesson from 2004/2005. Instead of micromanaging odious Ukrainian politics, Russia moved in to shape the economic situation in such a way that, from the Ukrainian point of view, association with Russia became an economic no brainer.
This is documented in a couple of studies of the brookings institution. Their estimate of total aid (hidden and not) of Russia to Ukraine, especially post 2004-2005 is in the ballpark between 5 and 10 billion dollars per year. This is still and understatement, since a number of things are missing here. Ukrainian industry was treated by Russia in the same way they treated Russian industry, so Ukraine had full access to Russian industrial orders. These were pretty genorous terms, and offering such terms in return for influence is how civilized nations get influence.

3: Russia offered considerable other concessions to Ukraine (concerning visa free travel, work permits, how remittance from Ukrainians working in Russia to Ukraine are handled etc. one should also add that Ukrainian citizens could rise to the highest positions in the Russian administration etc.) which the west was completly unwilling to even consider.

4: Russian support for Yanukovich in 2014/2013 was actually lukewarm at best. Had Ukraine gotten rid of him using either consitutional (as in, win a fair election) or "traditional" (as in, Yanuk gets a dose of previously undiagnosed Diabetes) means, Russia would not have batted an eyelid.

5: The EU offer was horribly bad, and is as a matter of fact so bad that even Poroshenko has not signed the economic part of it yet.
Because everyone knows that the economic part of the EU association agreement is economic suicide. Even the western media gets that by now (Der Spiegel had title story on that), and the awnser to the question "What do you call a protestor who overthrows a goverment because that goverment didnt sign an agreement that would be economic suicide" is pretty unflattering for Maidan.

6: Ukraine tried to use the horribly bad EU offer (had the EU offered what Ukraine is now getting because of "Russian aggression" in terms of loans etc., it would have been different) to get an even better deal from Russia. Putin initially tried to call that bluff, but later gave in to Ukraine.
An important result of this was that, due to Ukraines attempt of deceiving Russia concerning the desireability of the EU deal, the benefits and drawbacks of joining the EU vs. joining the Eurasian Union werent exactly openly and honestly discussed, including in the nominally "pro Russian" media. (And Yes, Yanukovich totally foisted himself by his own petard there).
Had they been, it would have been obvious that Ukraine is not going to sign that agreement, and that would have ended Ukraines attempt to bluff Russia.
Ukrainian leadership at that time propably thought it was safe, because the deal was so bad not even an Ultra-nationalist would sign the economic portions.

7: Some actors in the west meanwhile got an idea of the size of Russian investments into the situation (which were massive) and especially US American ones (lets face it, the important thing about Nulands much cited 5 billions is that 5 billions over 25 years is a pittance comparably), analyzed the current situation on the ground, and saw this as a situation in which Russia has a huge invesment, but temporarily really bad cards. They assesed the odds of a successfull coup as pretty decent, and decided to escalate things. The coup worked, and even if it didnt, the US would suffer no meaningfull loss. That the US in reality does not give a gently caress about Ukraine is what makes them so potent. They can happily screw over all other players (They have so gained control of Ukraines finances, literally hosed the EU and then hosed Russia some more), and a mixture of power and distance means at least no short term blowback.
The Russian loss in late February was massive. The US was "playing Poker", and their decsion makers propably saw this as "Haha, we won! Now on for the next round somewhere else where the Russians arent the prime foes, perhaps we may even cooperate".
The Russians are playing Chess, saw this as a terrible, terrifying attack and deemed it a precursor for a direct attack on Russia later.
Russia very much adheres to "men should be treated generously or destroyed, since they can take vengeance for minor/medium injuries, but not for fatal ones". To Russia, the coup was a medium injury. Too serious to laugh it away, but not serious enough to prevent Russian payback. From their perespective, the US American action only made sense if the USA was commited to utterly devastating Russia midterm, in order to avoid Russian payback at a time of Russias choosing. There were a lot out of US editorials and communications that reinforced this Russian belief.


8: Russia now panicked. This had several reasons: First, the "pro western" faction in Russia was basically put in a position were they had to commit suicide if Russia was Imperial Japan. They had previously convinced the Russian leadership that Russia could be a part of the west, play according to western rules, and still have influence beyond their borders. Russian actions prior to February were completely legal and legitimate, and not only in their eyes. They were also really expensive, not just monetarily but also in setting back important Russian goals in other sectors. Russia, rightly, perceives the February coup as proof that even if they use democratic and economic means, the west will use force and subversion to void such peacefull investments whenever it suits there interests and whereever such investemtns are not protected by Russian arms.
This lead to a wave of conversions away from a "western integrist" mindset among the high state, as well as to some personel and pecking order changes in the Russian High State. Secondly, there was an impetus to at least protect a part of the Russian investments in Ukraine. Thirdly, the Russian hawks wished to impose costs on the west for affecting Regime change against Russias vital interests (and also to the massive detriment of Ukraine, even if Russia would not counteract).
The Russian high state did, at this point, view the pro Western Ukrainians as western puppets, largely because it had a pretty good idea on just how bad the EU deal was. The perception of the Western Ukrainians was different due to a number of factors, but if you drill down, the Russians are pretty close to the truth concernign the EU agreeemtn
As far as Maidan demands for a less corrupt administration etc. went, Russia was in no way seeing herself an obstacle to that. A wealthy, pluralistic and non corrupt Ukraine with intensive ties to Russia would have been an immense asset, and also something Putin could use to threaten Russian Oligarchs with to improve his interal position. Russian self perception and how Russia was perceived by epsecially western Ukrainians varied hugely, and for actually quite understandable reasons from the West Ukrainian side but thats another topic.
Even f.e. Polish sources remarked how ridicolously optimistic the west Ukrainians are about the impact of the EU association.
A fourth reason for Russian urgency/panic was that Russia wants that East Ukraines industrial complex is maintained. This is an area that is of use for Russia, and from which they gain influence. Western reforms will be crushing those industrial complexes, partly by voiding Russian/Ukrainian trade deals, partly by imposing energy scarcity. This complexes could be crushed quickly, but rebuilding it would be prohibitvly expensive.

9: The Russian high state assesed its options, and actually used the SVR to do a "pre poll" on how Crimeans would view seperation from Ukraine. SVR came up with about 80% in favor, and assesed that the restive Crimean Tatars could be bought out by concessions (which isnt exactly what happened later). Russia moved into Crimea, got their referendum, and found no shortage of people willing to work with them and for them. Unfortunatly for Russia (more so for the Crimean Tatars), these people had a considerably less pragmatic view of Crimean Tatars then the Russian high state did.

10: Russian planners failed to assess at all how events in Crimea would play out in the rest of Ukraine. Russias actions had the following effects, all of them being detrimental to Russias interests:
A: Russia had now intervened more directly then the west did before. This resulted in the current opposition getting the "stooge of a foreign power" label which had rested squarely on the current goverments head before.
B: The Crimean operation was perhaps too successfull, and Russia was propably too generous in terms of promised economic concessions. Unrest in Donbass, Odessa, Mariupol and Dnipro began, and the protestors believed, incorrectly, that Russia had their backs.
C: The new goverment also believed that, and thus moved in against any "seperatist" with harsh measures that should not be tolerated by anyone concerned about human rights. People disappeared, both real and potential opposition leaders were imprisoned, bounties for "seperatists" were given and the really harsh repression was outsourced to what can be described as Nationalist "not yet death but getting close to that" squads. This created more additional unrest, resulted in equivalent actions of the opposition and the arrest of opposition politicians also resulted in a political vacuum.
D: The West ignored that repression, propably also because they were focused on the Russian actions in Crimea.

11: While the Russian high state was kind of scratching its head on what to do now, Ukraine (understandably) went into a nationalist frenzy.
So did certain groups within Russia, particularly Oligarchs with business interests in Ukraine. Strelkov is, among the high state, regarded as an Oligarch expy, and he and other adventurers such as him moved in to fill the void in Ukrainian opposition leadership.
They didnt live in Donbass, and thus had far less to loose from an escalation than the actual Ukrainian opposition. They then proceeded to have a large part in directly and indirectly increasing hostilities. Other actors on the pro Western side also had a part there.
People in the area generally accept the existence of a "third force" that intends to prolong hostilities, however, the actual "third force" (in my opinion, this is difficult to prove) is not a bunch of Speznaz (as west Ukrainians believe) or American financed Polish mercenaries (as the East Ukrainians believe) but can more accuratly be described as extreme extremist elements that are affiliated to both respective sides.

There is considerable historic precendent for substate actors attempting to control the states behavior by putting the state into situation where it has to use force or loose considerable assets. Strelkov is kind of a kin to the Japanese Major who basically managed to start an undeclared war with the Soviet Union at Kalkin Gol because it looked good for his career prospects (Japan lost, but the Major got moved to Tokyo where he, chastened by his Kalkin Gol experience, went on to propagate a war with the USA). Sam Houston would also come to mind here (more successfull example).

12: The West perceived the actions of Russian non State actors as epic Russian deception and treachery by the Russian state, and punished Russia as if the Russian high state would be doing the intervention.

13: This put the Russian High State in distinctly sub par position. It hadnt intervened yet, but was punished as if it had, and, because it had not yet intervened, was unable to actually control the insurgents in the South East in a meaningfull way and thus also unable to prevent further punishment. They could have left them to die, but such a move (ignoring the obvious fallout in Russian internal politics for the argument) would be seen as weakness by both the west and by other actors and simply invite more aggression against Russia.

14: Russia intervened, and quickly and effectively brought and end to the goverments attempts of destroying the Ukrainian opposition. Upon leaving, they ensured that people like Strelkov got out of power, and enabled a transition towards local leadership for the 2 peoples Republics. There was an earlier attempt to cut Strelkov loose, which ended with Strelkov catching a rumor of it, leaving Slavyansk (and claiming that as an "epic fighting military withdrawal", it worked because noone, not Russia, not Ukraine and not the Donbass leadership expected him to do that), turning up in Donetsk and making his removal without the presence of High State aligned forces impossible.

One should add that Russia went out of its way to explicitly show that it didnt intend to conquer Novorussija for the opposition, or military effect regime change in the capital on their behalf. Both of these options are well within their military capacities.

Prospects for the future:

What the west, at least most of it, completely fails to get is that the sanction regime and the concerted action against Russia, coupled with unacceptable demands to Russia, could well result in a situation where Russia decides to conquer some extra bargaining chips while it still has currency reserves. This will even more be the case if Russia is continously "punished" for things she has not done yet.
Another big problem is that the West has a horrible horrible track record of keeping any kind of commitments it made to a "non western" actor. While the Domino theory is much maligned, from Russian Hawks pov, they can either fight the west in Ukraine now until the west goes somewhere else, or wait and have to fight the west in Russia at a time of the wests choosing.

Accepting Western demands concerning Ukraine now would, in a best case scenario, mean that Russia looses all influence beyond her borders and is then left alone. Given how rich and appealing Russias natural resource endowment is, and given how deeply entrenched Anti Russian elites are in the west, this is really unlikely to happen.
A more realistic scenario results in another Yeltzin style period in Russia. The last such perioud caused between 2 and 4 million premature Russian deaths in terms of excess mortality/life expectency reductions etc., this is simply not acceptable for any meanignfull Russian actor.

An important fact in favor of "no world war 3" is that Russia is a lot more stable then Imperial Japan, and has far more degrees of freedom economically before options boil down to "attack" or "capitulate". Also, historic Soviet precedent shows that the Russians were one of the rare empires accepting considerable contraction without going all out in a last ditch attempt.

In addition, Domino theory based Russian doomsayers understate, just like the American domino theory doomsayers regarding south East Asia, that the "west" is not a monolith and has some faultlines.
There are also other players, China being the most important of those, who have absolutly no interest in Russia capitulating to the west. India is trying to walk a tightrope between preventing a Russian capitulation and also preventing a Sino Russian alliance. Japan is a special case. They want a strong Russia that complicates the situation for China, they also want a docile Russia, they want to get those Islands back and they want access to Russian resources and the Russian market. They know that getting all of that is an illusion, but Russia may actually offer a pretty good deal (now is the best time ever to make deals with Russia for everyone else), and Putin is slated for a visit to Japan in early 2015. Russia is actually in a decent position to exploit Japanese nationalism. They wont hand the Kuriles over, but agreeing on a demilitarisation regime (Russia would be hard pressed to defend anything on the Kurils against the very capable Japanese submarine force), would give the Abe goverment some pretty big nationalist props. Russia could sell this to China as an attempt of trading some Islands China doesnt care about for a decent chance of fraying US-Japanese ties (now, some Chinese factions see US influence as restraining the Japanese, but the Zhongnanhai is opaque, and it is hard to tell with them).

Such powers (notably China and India) have scant inclination to pay Russia for doing something Russia would do anyway, and some of these powers would prefer that both sides loose (Turkey imho), but they will likely support Russia to keep it from capitulating.

Excessively few players by contrast had much sympathies for Imperial Japan.

Russias option may increase further if western attempts to isolate Russia become overly hamhanded. Erdogan has absolutly no love for Russia/Putin, but will react with considerable amounts of hostility if the west "orders" him to break ties.
The West can do that with Bulgaria, if they try that with a regional power, it will very likely backfire.

Phlegmish posted:

It's 13° here, half past ten. I could get used to global warming.

Mightypeon posted:

And what actually happened:

Randandal posted:

I don't know enough to really judge if this is great analysis or terrible analysis, but I really enjoyed reading it.

Mightypeon posted:

My Imaginary GF posted:

For others in this thread, you can read this wall of text, or listen to me when I say the commies have invaded Ukraine because they're bankrupt.

Which will you read?

Randandal posted:

I don't know enough to really judge if this is great analysis or terrible analysis, but I really enjoyed reading it.

Lichtenstein posted:

So was that Putin apologia or domino theory apologia?

Friendly Tumour posted:

This is a really good read, although your assumptions as to what Russia has actually been doing in Ukraine behind the scenes are a bit ridiculous. There isn't enough real evidence to decide what the extent of Russian involvement has really been. Also, those very fault-lines you mention between American and European interests will be what eventually resolve this conflict. America can play brinksmanship with economic sanctions because America has nothing to lose in this game. Europe, particularly Eastern EU, already has lost quite a lot as a result of losing access to Russian markets. The EU is not going to support further sanctions if indeed Russia doesn't do anything monumentally stupid like sending tank battalions into Donbass.

The EU in general is way too divided and concerned with her fragile economic situation to want to escalate this any further, and has every reason to seek de-escalation and de-facto normalization of relations as soon as politically possible without losing face.

I am curious about your claims that the Ukranian state actually sent death squads to eastern Ukraine to quell dissent. Seriously? Do you have any source for that? Because my understanding was that the escalation was ultimately the work of uncontrolled (and uncontrollable) extreme nationalists on both sides trying to whip poo poo up without any encouragement or support from either the Ukrainian or the Russian governments.

Mightypeon posted:

You are right, those squads partly (imho, and I explicitly called them "not quite death squads") sent themselfs.
IIRC Ruban also said/implied that such squads were active at the beginning, and that the opposition and the Ukrainian regular military cooperated against them. Strelkov implied that too, as was actually proud to have brought this cooperation to an end.
There is also the thing on how you rate Kolomoisky (who was in fact using incredibly heavy handed tactics from the getgo), how you rate his association with such squads (which exists, but the details and the timing are up to dispute) and how you rate his degree of allegiance to the authorities in Kyiv (I would wager that he doesnt know himself and changes his mind every 2 hours or so).
To the opposition, Kolomoisky is very much the face wearing the jackboot stomping on their faces forever, and their view on that certainly matters. There is also a notable up and down regarding representatives of such squads in Kyiv and Dnipro leadership. And this is really complex, on one hand, Sasha Belyi gets executed by Kyiv without a trial in a totally transparent open and blatant assasination (not that I would shed any tears for him), on the other the hand the vice commander of Azov Batallion becomes head of the Kyiv police. This is not a clear picture, and the opposition naturally assumes the very worst.
One could interpret the formation of a national guard as an attempt to reign those squads in by Kyiv (which I think was what the Kyiv leadership planned to do with that formation). But it was seen by the opposition as outfitting these squads with heavy weaponry and thus further escalated resistance and mutual slaughter.

E: some additions

My Imaginary GF posted:

For others in this thread, you can read this wall of text, or listen to me when I say the commies have invaded Ukraine because they're bankrupt.

Which will you read?

Zeroisanumber posted:

"Phuket, let's knock off work and get some Russian hookers."

fatherboxx posted:

Microphone lady trying too hard

fatherboxx posted:

Microphone lady trying too hard

steinrokkan posted:

would?

quote:

MINSK, December 17. /TASS/. The Belarusian army will get four S-300 surface-to-air missile systems from Russia next year, Russian ambassador to Belarus Alexander Surikov said in Minsk on Wednesday.

Russia also plans to increase the number of combat aircraft deployed in Belarus to 12, and the number of trainer aircraft to two. “And the first wing of four military helicopters Mi-8 will bolster the on-duty forces in the Belarusian airspace,” the diplomat said.

The ambassador said Russia and Belarus have been successfully cooperating in the military and technical sphere. Some 99 Belarusian and 940 Russian enterprises are involved in this cooperation.
“The share of Belarusian products in the Russian defense order is already 15%,” he said adding that Russia’s defense order is “colossal.”

The S-300 systems (NATO reporting name SA-10 Grumble) are designed to defend major facilities from air attacks. They are considered to be some of the world's most capable anti-aircraft missile systems.

quote:

Several soldiers in uniforms of Russia's Army were seen at Minsk railway station.

They refused to answer who they are and where they are going to. The soldiers also did not want to be photographed.

They had two big military cases with Pulkovo Airport luggage stickers. Another sticker was in the colours of the Russian flag and bore inscription 'I Am Just a Polite Man'.

'Polite people' – camouflaged servicemen in balaclavas but without any insignia who appeared in Crimea before the March referendum.

A week ago Russian soldiers from Bryansk wearing the uniform without insignias were reported to appear in the Belarusian city of Homel.

Cuntpunch posted:

Can anyone provide sources on how the 2013 Maidan was completely a Western-led fabricated coup, and not a populist movement akin to the 2004 Orange Revolution? It comes up again and again with every single justification for Russian intervention, but mostly it seems to be "some american politicians happened to go to Ukraine to try and help find a solution" getting turned into "the CIA was responsible for all the protests."

Mightypeon posted:

He was then the boss of Right Sector in Western Ukraine.
According to the official report, he shot himself by accident, apperantly after handcuffing himself and then removing his bullet proof west.