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Majorian posted:
For what it's worth I think your framing is pretty spot on on for Putin and the Kremlin's view of the last 30 years, I just think that on a discussion forum that assessment needs to be balanced against the fact that as long as we are defining Containment as 'stop treating your neighbours as client states' then it's entirely reasonable and in fact good to contain Russia. As people like to point out, you don't actually have to be a democractic state which respects the human rights of its citizens to get along just fine with the Western world. You just have to not be a psychopath.
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Feb 16, 2022 10:23
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| # ? May 24, 2024 13:48 |
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Europe doesn't have to completely replace gas by nuclear. Having the physical ability to import gas from somewhere else makes them lose leverage. The Baltics were completely dependent on Russian gas and that changed overnight as the first LNG terminal was completed. Same story with Ukraine (which started importing gas through the EU), soon Poland and Bulgaria. They don't have to fully cut off gas from Russia, but having the ability to choose who to buy it from removes the weapon of turning off gas that Russia had over them (and used a few times). Germany is screwed short term as they didn't build an LNG terminal, but if they have any brains and strategic thinking at all they will diversify their supply and this will be a strategic leverage that Russia loses in 2-3 years. Russian exports to China are a joke, 37bcm/year with the current "grand" deal about to increase it by a whole 10bcm/y, that's nothingquote:Feel free to put me on ignore, or better yet, explain to me where I'm wrong. The reason why I feel confident in my assessment is that for a lot of my life, it was quite literally my job to make assessments like these about people like Vladimir Putin. I don't know where to start since you write a lot of paragraphs which kinda-sorta sound true from the realpolitik western russia-verstehers love, but are more complicated than that and before I'm done you vomit out a few paragraphs more. First option it is then Somaen fucked around with this message at 10:34 on Feb 16, 2022 |
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Feb 16, 2022 10:23
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cinci zoo sniper posted:Moscow interpretation of Minsk agreements is utter comedy. These “separatist” regions are staffed by Russian soldiers, and ruled by Russian citizens, down to United Russia membership cards personally presented to them by Medvedev. Hell, Borodai, the first “prime minister” of DNR, is a sitting member of the Russian parliament. Yet at the same time Moscow pretends this is an internal conflict of Ukraine. It's not Russia's interpretation, this is just what was agreed on and there's no other way to interpret them. It's understandable that Ukraine now is in a different situation than when Minsk II was signed, and would want to revise some of its provisions, but it's clear that neither Russia or LDNR are willing to budge on elections.
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Feb 16, 2022 10:31
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Majorian posted:Moscow has shown that it can cause an absurd level of panic just by moving troops around within its own borders. NATO should try simply moving half of its combat-ready personnel and equipment within its own territory, to the Baltics.
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Feb 16, 2022 10:31
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Majorian posted:So since then, Russia has engaged in a more assertive mode of geopolitics. So far it has worked out pretty well for them - much better than the previous strategy, at the very least. That doesn't mean that the rest of the world should roll over and show its belly whenever Putin threatens another country. What it does mean is that a strategy of containing a Russia that is an energy-exporting superpower is ultimately doomed to fail. We cannot engage them militarily, and we cannot contain them. So that leaves us with diplomacy, and that means trading concessions so that all sides can save face as best they can. It may or may not succeed at stopping episodes like this from popping up in the future - we can't know the outcome for certain. But we do know that it's really the only way forward that has any hope of succeeding. The "gently caress you, you're a defeated enemy, you get nothing" strategy is what got us here in the first place. Russias sphere of influence is disintegrating and Russia is currently doing everything it can to harm and weaken a would-be defector and one of its own trade partners. It seems like mostly ignoring Russia keeps Russia plenty busy just trying to maintain the status quo. This whole thing is about Russia being unable to keep its clients from leaving. In any case we don't know what concessions Russia was offered but it's presumptuous to assume there were none. There may be no concessions NATO/the US/the West are willing to give that would satisfy Russia but that's different from not offering anything in good faith. Veto power over NATO membership is clearly ludicrous so if that's the kind of concessions required to appease Russia then we're poo poo out of luck and I guess Russia has no choice but to reduce its fleeing clients to rubble.
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Feb 16, 2022 10:34
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Alchenar posted:For what it's worth I think your framing is pretty spot on on for Putin and the Kremlin's view of the last 30 years, I just think that on a discussion forum that assessment needs to be balanced against the fact that as long as we are defining Containment as 'stop treating your neighbours as client states' then it's entirely reasonable and in fact good to contain Russia. That's fair, I mostly agree with you on all of that. But let's be real - this whole episode isn't going to significantly affect their relations with Western governments one way or the other. It's still going to be business as usual. Western Europeans will still shell out money for Russian energy, and their governments will continue to go out of their way to avoid anything remotely close to war. The U.S. and NATO didn't involve themselves in this out of a commitment to democratic values or Ukraine's right to determine its own domestic and foreign policies without interference. Our governments don't give a poo poo about Ukraine's well-being one way or the other, beyond how it impacts our respective empires. Somaen posted:Europe doesn't have to completely replace gas by nuclear. Having the physical ability to import gas from somewhere else makes them lose leverage. The Baltics were completely dependent on Russian gas and that changed overnight as the first LNG terminal was completed. Same story with Ukraine (which started importing gas through the EU), soon Poland and Bulgaria. They don't have to fully cut off gas from Russia, but having the ability to choose who to buy it from removes the weapon of turning off gas that Russia had over them (and used a few times). Germany is screwed short term as they didn't build an LNG terminal, but if they have any brains and strategic thinking at all they will diversify their supply and this will be a strategic leverage that Russia loses in 2-3 years. Russian exports to China are a joke, 37bcm/year with the current "grand" deal about to increase it by a whole 10bcm/y, that's nothing It would be nothing if it stopped there, but it won't. There will be more deals with Beijing in the future. Russia is pivoting towards China, and China is receptive. They don't care if they're viewed as a bogeyman by the rest of the world, so long as the rest of the world keeps doing business with them, which they will have to.
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Feb 16, 2022 10:35
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Majorian posted:How does any of that play out in reality, though? The G8 was already a meaningless, obsolete relic, and the rest of the world will still gladly do business with Russia, alcoholic neighbor or not. Western Europe will still buy their energy. NATO's not going to expand. Moscow has shown that it can cause an absurd level of panic just by moving troops around within its own borders. If there's any lesson that Russia has learned over the past thirty years of diplomacy, it's that it really is better to be feared than loved. G8 is a relic but shuffling tank divisions like a demented wargamer is forward thinking, okay. 2014 and the current ridiculous affair have secured the continuous need for NATO in current members and improved the views on it in neutral countries. Ukraine and Georgia are lost from positive Russian influence for good. Dunno what lessons can be learned when with Yeltsin CIS was a thing that mattered and the current Russia Stronk cant keep Azerbaijan from reheating the conflict with Armenia.
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Feb 16, 2022 10:39
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Paladinus posted:It's not Russia's interpretation, this is just what was agreed on and there's no other way to interpret them. It's understandable that Ukraine now is in a different situation than when Minsk II was signed, and would want to revise some of its provisions, but it's clear that neither Russia or LDNR are willing to budge on elections. Elections are the least controversial part of it. My argument is that Russia is a party to the conflict, yet Minsk agreements portray Russia as a guarantor/judge of them. One of the major practical differences between Russia and Ukraine, on the topic of undeniably vaguely written agreements, is the order of events. Russia is unwilling to give up border control to Ukraine, and wants LDNR to self-organise local elections while it keeps the borders for itself. Ukraine seems to be perfectly fine with organising elections there, with international monitors and all, if it regains control over its borders first, and is able to restore basic infrastructure and services in LDNR (for instance, LDNR authorities have been blocking residents from accessing frontline civic service centres built out by Kyiv, where people can receive their pensions etcetera, for purported epidemiological concerns). The actual point of contention is the extent of special rights the regions should receive - which is another area where the agreements are simply poorly written.
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Feb 16, 2022 10:40
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Majorian posted:This is one of those things where there doesn't necessarily have to be material gain for Russians to be happy about it. Revanchism is a helluva drug. Believing that they can once again stand toe-to-toe with the U.S. and NATO, who they (quite fairly) blame for humiliating and immiserating their country in the 90s, is a victory. You know how Trump hasn't brought his constituency very much in terms of actual material gains, and yet they love him because he owns/terrifies the libs? It's kind of like that, except Putin has also improved the overall Russian standard of living from when he took office (although that's obviously a low bar to clear). I am talking about public perception. What of any of this did Russia win or the West/Ukraine lose for revanchists to be happy about? Compared to the amount of noise this situation made you've got to have something to show to the public. My google news app shows me almost exclusively russian news and I am not seeing any elation over victory, mostly relief over no war, some - in fact annoyance at Putin, a number of people who thought themselves important feel fooled, one piece weirdly enough declared that Russia got screwed over by the west. As for "successes" of Russia's recent politics, what are they? They gained a bunch of sanctions, dropped the rouble and made a bunch of enemies including among former friends and in return what? Crimea which is another burden on Russia's budget and a bunch of split away regions which while preclude their countries from joining nato, still don't stop them from direct treaties with USA or whoever feels like it. If the goal was control over former USSR republics they got the opposite.
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Feb 16, 2022 11:00
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cinci zoo sniper posted:NATO should try simply moving half of its combat-ready personnel and equipment within its own territory, to the Baltics. an absurd level of panic caused by a dude pointing a gun at someone's head even though he hasn't pulled the trigger yet and has even said "I'm not gonna shoot you"
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Feb 16, 2022 11:02
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cinci zoo sniper posted:Elections are the least controversial part of it. My argument is that Russia is a party to the conflict, yet Minsk agreements portray Russia as a guarantor/judge of them. There is no ambiguity in the agreement on the order of events. quote:Restore control of the state border to the Ukrainian government in the whole conflict zone, which has to start on the first day after the local election and end after the full political regulation (local elections in particular districts of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts based on the law of Ukraine and Constitutional reform) Ukraine is trying to reneg on this. The special rights of the regions are outlined in the law On temporary Order of Local Self-Governance in Particular Districts of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts, which Rada passed in 2014 and renews every year. This law is explicitly mentioned in the agreement, and there is no ambiguity there either.
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Feb 16, 2022 11:10
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Somaen posted:Europe doesn't have to completely replace gas by nuclear. Having the physical ability to import gas from somewhere else makes them lose leverage. Replacing gas with nuclear is a completely non-sensical idea. Gas power is for peak loads, which means you'd need to build out reservoir power stations to replace that with nuclear, which is the same thing required for replacing gas with renewables. Massively building out renewables is cheaper and was more reasonable than going all-in on expensive nuclear. Fame Douglas fucked around with this message at 11:46 on Feb 16, 2022 |
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Feb 16, 2022 11:41
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Paladinus posted:There is no ambiguity in the agreement on the order of events. If we look at Minsk II (full text): art. 10 quote:Withdrawal of all foreign armed formations, military equipment, as well as mercenaries from There are no pre-conditions for this, and at this point de facto the border control already is Ukrainian. That as not happened, and so art. 12 quote:Based on the Law of Ukraine “On interim local self-government order in certain areas of the It is impossible to conduct elections to an OSCE standard because the region is controlled by a foreign army mixed with unlawfully operating paramilitaries. Paladinus posted:The special rights of the regions are outlined in the law On temporary Order of Local Self-Governance in Particular Districts of Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts, which Rada passed in 2014 and renews every year. This law is explicitly mentioned in the agreement, and there is no ambiguity there either. I meant the constitutional reform bit here, about decentralization. That seems to be open to interpretation for anyone, with the law you mention being a separate part of article 11.
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Feb 16, 2022 11:52
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https://twitter.com/markmackinnon/status/1493905875978928129?t=7jV13okt36IQC5hozhAlaw&s=19
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Feb 16, 2022 12:53
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Alchenar posted:
You can even be a psychopath, just as long as you direct that against targets acceptable to western powers
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Feb 16, 2022 13:12
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cinci zoo sniper posted:
In particular Putin seems to want a Bosnia #2, aka complete end of Ukrainian sovereignty in practice. Poroshenko's attempts to implement it --- which had faced severe political trouble --- were more towards vague local autonomy in local matters that really won't be controversial in other circumstances and if it were applied equally. Well, except for some coockos that would probably get elected in Halytsina.
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Feb 16, 2022 13:39
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Somaen posted:Also real cool to have an American explain Russia to Russians, thank you wise white man for your wisdom bestowed to us stupid savages I mean fair enough for the first part but are Russians in the US referring to themselves as POC now? Lol
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Feb 16, 2022 13:49
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Dr.Radical posted:I mean fair enough for the first part but are Russians in the US referring to themselves as POC now? Lol Uhh, if you think racism and bigotry is only about skin color you're, well, applying the American conception of it where it doesn't apply.
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Feb 16, 2022 13:54
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Dude said “wise white man.” Sounds like “you know Irish people used to not be considered white!”
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Feb 16, 2022 13:56
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cinci zoo sniper posted:If we look at Minsk II (full text): It's pretty obvious in context that if control of the border is supposed to be transferred back to Ukraine after the election, someone else will be controlling it in the meantime. And the precondition to border control is elections. OSCE should in theory be able to highlight any breaches of their standards when elections are actually planned. Russia would presumably call back all Russian 'consultants' and regular units by that point. Again, I think it's fair for Ukraine not to be happy with Minsk II, but it's fairly unambiguous in how things are supposed to go, and Russia's interpretation is not different from France's or Germany's interpretation.
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Feb 16, 2022 13:58
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Wait, you do know that the GDR also had former nazis in their armed forces, correct? Ergo, by this logic, the GDR, Warsaw Pact, the Soviet Union, and by extension Russia are National Socialists. PS. While the Russian Federation is not a National Socialist (aka Nazi) regime, they do tick most of the boxes for fascism. PPS. The Russian armed forces and the Donbas People’s Republic have their fair share of avowed Nazis, which is always entertaining considering Hitler described the war with Russia as one of extermination; and very overtly considered Slavs non-aryan and marked for death to make way for German colonists.
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Feb 16, 2022 14:38
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Quiet day on the border, huh?
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Feb 16, 2022 14:40
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Anyone have a good up to the minute source on troop movements for the invasion today?
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Feb 16, 2022 14:49
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There hasn't been any significant troop movements for a couple days, they're still well-positioned for an invasion, see e.g. https://citeam.org/order-of-battle-russia-ukraine-2022.html?5
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Feb 16, 2022 15:04
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Yeah worth pointing out: The Crimea training event was happening at the same time, and most of the units in Crimea are not in a good position to be involved in a hypothetical invasion anyways. There's still a significant amount of forces positioned to effectively behead Kyiv if they launched military action. CommieGIR fucked around with this message at 15:11 on Feb 16, 2022 |
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Feb 16, 2022 15:08
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Paladinus posted:It's pretty obvious in context that if control of the border is supposed to be transferred back to Ukraine after the election, someone else will be controlling it in the meantime. And the precondition to border control is elections. Border not being under Ukrainian control does reasonably contradict absence of third parties’ military forces in the area. Rhetorically speaking, “transfer” implies that the situation until then violates article 10, because the only group that can legally control the border is the state border guard service. In other words, as I tried saying earlier, this is not the best written diplomatic agreement. While Russian interpretation may end up prevailing fully or in part, and while the document clearly favours Russia in any case, I do agree with people, both in Ukraine and abroad, who say that some parts of the agreement may be rationally interpreted in multiple ways.
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Feb 16, 2022 15:08
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In any case I think the whole border >< elections issue over Minsk is shadowboxing. Putin's real endgame objective is obviously an autonomous region that will reliably return a Moscow client and which constitutionally holds a veto over Ukrainian membership of NATO. That's probably the legal guarantee he keeps asking someone to offer him.
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Feb 16, 2022 15:13
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Alchenar posted:In any case I think the whole border >< elections issue over Minsk is shadowboxing. Putin's real endgame objective is obviously an autonomous region that will reliably return a Moscow client and which constitutionally holds a veto over Ukrainian membership of NATO. That's probably the legal guarantee he keeps asking someone to offer him. Yeah, all actions taken since the start of Donbas occupation pursue the exact same objective - to gain exclusive control over Ukraine’s international affairs.
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Feb 16, 2022 15:19
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Paladinus posted:It's pretty obvious in context that if control of the border is supposed to be transferred back to Ukraine after the election, someone else will be controlling it in the meantime. And the precondition to border control is elections.
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Feb 16, 2022 15:38
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I don't know if I said this on this board or the Eastern Europe board, but Putin really disregarded the long-term implications of annexing Crimea and making eastern Ukraine a puppet or semi-autonomous. Those were the regions most likely to elect a pro-Russia government in Kiev and with them gone, it's going to be pro-EU governments for the foreseeable future. Like everything with Russia since the invention of writing, soft-power and genuine reasons to align with Russia would have accomplished everything he wanted.
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Feb 16, 2022 15:38
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ZombieLenin posted:PPS. The Russian armed forces and the Donbas People’s Republic have their fair share of avowed Nazis, which is always entertaining considering Hitler described the war with Russia as one of extermination; and very overtly considered Slavs non-aryan and marked for death to make way for German colonists. Pook Good Mook posted:I don't know if I said this on this board or the Eastern Europe board, but Putin really disregarded the long-term implications of annexing Crimea and making eastern Ukraine a puppet or semi-autonomous. Those were the regions most likely to elect a pro-Russia government in Kiev and with them gone, it's going to be pro-EU governments for the foreseeable future.
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Feb 16, 2022 15:41
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""Russia's Investigative Committee claims mass graves of hundreds of civilians killed by Ukrainian shelling found ""
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Feb 16, 2022 15:52
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WAR CRIME GIGOLO posted:""Russia's Investigative Committee claims mass graves of hundreds of civilians killed by Ukrainian shelling found Damned LDPR can't even bury people they occupied properly.
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Feb 16, 2022 15:56
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WAR CRIME GIGOLO posted:""Russia's Investigative Committee claims mass graves of hundreds of civilians killed by Ukrainian shelling found Can you please source the quote?
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Feb 16, 2022 16:18
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Elizabeth Cluppins posted:Can you please source the quote? https://ria.ru/20220216/zakhoroneniya-1773165913.html
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Feb 16, 2022 16:19
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Elizabeth Cluppins posted:Can you please source the quote? https://tass.com/world/1401797 Partly. Cinci has a better source I'm really not trying to be intentionally obtuse with sourcing. But I can't read that much Russian and this stuff doesn't get reported by English news until days after . Thank you EE folks for posting sources that I cannot read
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Feb 16, 2022 16:19
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Of note in that article is a classical moral outrage move in Russian language press - “It is already known, that amongst the remains there are those of women of varying age”.
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Feb 16, 2022 16:25
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cinci zoo sniper posted:Of note in that article is a classical moral outrage move in Russian language press - “It is already known, that amongst the remains there are those of women of varying age”. They killed out beautiful babushkas of varying age Russian morals cannot stand for this atrocity
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Feb 16, 2022 16:27
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Love how Russia goes in reverse order to be as transparent as possible about how bullshit this is. Normal countries would plant this story a month or so ago, get outraged, demand concessions from Ukraine, then move militarily "as a last option." Putin throws 1/3 of the army on the border, builds bridges, attempts to get nonsense concessions from unrelated parties, THEN invents a casus belli.
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Feb 16, 2022 16:28
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| # ? May 24, 2024 13:48 |
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Thanks for posting this. From the automatic google translation of the page: quote:At the same time, Ukraine has now concentrated half of the army’s personnel in the Donbass and is shelling the militias, including with the use of prohibited equipment. There's any number of things to pick apart here but I find the bolded particularly interesting given that the US, UK, and Canada have all withdrawn their instructors out of the country for some mysterious reason.
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Feb 16, 2022 16:29
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