Kill All Cops posted:

And the person doing that systemic oppression is being gladly welcomed into the LPR / DPR

indigi posted:

here’s something I don’t quite understand: why are they so eager (or even simply willing) for reintegration with a state that has been openly hostile to them? I understand not wanting to be part of Russia (though I wonder how feasible the republics would be if they’re fully independent) but wanting to rejoin Ukraine with some level of autonomy that could be stripped away by the next further-right government that comes into power seems like a bad idea

Frosted Flake posted:

This is my thought too. loving millennials with emails jobs calling for either conventional war or insurgency makes me sick.

I got injured during the last, least intense year of Canada’s war in Afghanistan. A friend of mine got hit by a rocket in line for the juice bar on KAF. I know a guy who broke his back, recovered, returned to duty and then had his legs blown off. It is so much worse than any of these Libs think, and to go through that because they’re sad the 90’s are over… I mean, more power to those YOSPOS guys who are apparently enlisting in the CAF. This isn’t an Epic Troop Rant calling out Lib Pussies, I’m genuinely sad and upset that these cloistered people my age want to go through something that genuinely makes me unable to enjoy life back home.

If they want to go soldiering in a war a thousand times more violent and intense than the Stan, far be it from me to stop them, but they should at least know that however many Pashtun farmers we blew up because they were digging wells at night or were taking down raisins in a grape hut, a conventional war in the Ukraine will throw so much ordnance around that it will make that look downright humanitarian.

AnimeIsTrash posted:

goon named kill all cops: y'all are being too ablist

R. Guyovich posted:

Pener Kropoopkin posted:

I reckon it's a semantic issue. Russia can claim that they're only entering the breakaway regions and going no further, so they're not really invading Ukraine. It's ultimately just splitting hairs and doesn't actually matter. A real invasion would mean direct confrontation with the Ukrainian military.

The situation in Crimea was very different from D&L because Crimea is impossible to attack from the north, and the population there was overwhelmingly pro Russian - even more so than in the Donbas. The Russian military didn't even have to use deadly force, they took over Ukrainian bases with fist fights. They saw an opportunity to take a region that was historically Russian and whose population wanted to be part of Russia again - so they took it. In D&L the separatists had to take up arms themselves and were in immediate conflict with Ukrainian security forces. They were so desperate for weapons and vehicles that they recommissioned a museum piece T-34. The politics there are thrown off because people in the Donbas aren't really interested in being part of Russia. What they want is reintegration into Ukraine in a way that guarantees the protection of their Russian language and culture. The Russian military supported the separatists because it was an opportunity for them to keep Ukraine indefinitely unstable and keep them out of NATO.

Ukraine does have a lot of economic importance to Russia, but thanks to the post-Maidan government trade between the two has slowed down to a trickle. At this point Russia's strategic interests are purely military. If NATO can station forces and strategic weapons in Ukraine then that's a direct threat to the core of Russian territory, far in excess even than the usual threat presented by ICBMs, nuclear subs, and other such things. The Bush administration even had a plan to set up anti-missile defense systems in eastern europe for the purposes of shooting down Russian strategic weapons in case a war broke out. It wasn't feasible at the time, and had to be abandoned - but it did signal that we're dumb enough to try it if it does become feasible. So the Russians don't have to just be concerned about direct threats to their territory, but also a potential threat to their ability to retaliate.

Michael Hudson posted:

America’s rising pressure on its allies threatens to drive them out of the U.S. orbit. For over 75 years they had little practical alternative to U.S. hegemony. But that is now changing. America no longer has the monetary power and seemingly chronic trade and balance-of-payments surplus that enabled it to draw up the world’s trade and investment rules in 1944-45. The threat to U.S. dominance is that China, Russia and Mackinder’s Eurasian World Island heartland are offering better trade and investment opportunities than are available from the United States with its increasingly desperate demand for sacrifices from its NATO and other allies.

The most glaring example is the U.S. drive to block Germany from authorizing the Nord Stream 2 pipeline to obtain Russian gas for the coming cold winter. Angela Merkle agreed with Donald Trump to spend $1 billion building a new LNG port to become more dependent on highly priced U.S. LNG. (The plan was cancelled after the U.S. and German elections changed both leaders.) But Germany has no other way of heating many of its houses and office buildings (or supplying its fertilizer companies) than with Russian gas.

The only way left for U.S. diplomats to block European purchases is to goad Russia into a military response and then claim that avenging this response outweighs any purely national economic interest. As hawkish Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Victoria Nuland, explained in a State Department press briefing on January 27: “If Russia invades Ukraine one way or another Nord Stream 2 will not move forward.” The problem is to create a suitably offensive incident and depict Russia as the aggressor.

Nuland expressed who was dictating the policies of NATO members succinctly in 2014: “gently caress the EU.” That was said as she told the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine that the State Department was backing the puppet Arseniy Yatsenyuk as Ukrainian prime minister (removed after two years in a corruption scandal), and U.S. political agencies backed the bloody Maidan massacre that ushered in what are now eight years of civil war. The result devastated Ukraine much as U.S. violence had done in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. This is not a policy of world peace or democracy that European voters endorse.

Lostconfused posted:

Because they've been Ukrainian their whole lives. They've lived in Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and then Ukraine. They don't give a poo poo about politics, they just want to live their lives in Ukraine like they've always have. For them this is effectively another fight between Kiev and Moscow that's been going on for I don't know how many hundreds of years now.

R. Guyovich posted:

Kill All Cops posted:

And the person doing that systemic oppression is being gladly welcomed into the LPR / DPR

R. Guyovich posted:

Pener Kropoopkin posted:

I reckon it's a semantic issue. Russia can claim that they're only entering the breakaway regions and going no further, so they're not really invading Ukraine. It's ultimately just splitting hairs and doesn't actually matter. A real invasion would mean direct confrontation with the Ukrainian military.

The situation in Crimea was very different from D&L because Crimea is impossible to attack from the north, and the population there was overwhelmingly pro Russian - even more so than in the Donbas. The Russian military didn't even have to use deadly force, they took over Ukrainian bases with fist fights. They saw an opportunity to take a region that was historically Russian and whose population wanted to be part of Russia again - so they took it. In D&L the separatists had to take up arms themselves and were in immediate conflict with Ukrainian security forces. They were so desperate for weapons and vehicles that they recommissioned a museum piece T-34. The politics there are thrown off because people in the Donbas aren't really interested in being part of Russia. What they want is reintegration into Ukraine in a way that guarantees the protection of their Russian language and culture. The Russian military supported the separatists because it was an opportunity for them to keep Ukraine indefinitely unstable and keep them out of NATO.

Ukraine does have a lot of economic importance to Russia, but thanks to the post-Maidan government trade between the two has slowed down to a trickle. At this point Russia's strategic interests are purely military. If NATO can station forces and strategic weapons in Ukraine then that's a direct threat to the core of Russian territory, far in excess even than the usual threat presented by ICBMs, nuclear subs, and other such things. The Bush administration even had a plan to set up anti-missile defense systems in eastern europe for the purposes of shooting down Russian strategic weapons in case a war broke out. It wasn't feasible at the time, and had to be abandoned - but it did signal that we're dumb enough to try it if it does become feasible. So the Russians don't have to just be concerned about direct threats to their territory, but also a potential threat to their ability to retaliate.

Beached Whale posted:

I think your average citizen in the "breakaway" regions is well aware they're just pawns for corrupt clownfucks to further loot their respective countries.

indigi posted:

but Ukraine has said they hate them and want to strip them of their language and culture, and with nazis in power who knows what’s next. why are they determined to go back to that, seems counterproductive considering they formed breakaway republics in the first place

Fat-Lip-Sum-41.mp3 posted:

Whatever anyone thinks an invasion is, the U.S. has gotten their incident. They're calling it the invasion. So they were right, of course. The ever-coming invasion has now come. They have said so.

Kill All Cops posted:

Do you think a certain homophobic slur actually means a bundle of sticks?

Lostconfused posted:

Because this poo poo has been going on for 8 years now, and people just want to live.

If some other rear end in a top hat wants to start this poo poo up again some years later, that's a problem for later. Right now there's a pointless war disrupting their lives and they just want it to end.

a primate posted:

are those two regions really worth something economically or strategically, or are they just stepping stones towards Ukraine’s mineral wealth elsewhere?

Kill All Cops posted:

Do you think a certain homophobic slur actually means a bundle of sticks?

Zeroisanumber posted:

I'm not so much talking about the Russian Army not being able to beat Ukraine in a fight, but their logistics are completely hosed. Things in Russia are better than they were 20 years ago but anywhere outside of Moscow and St. Petersburg has just not gotten investment. Idk how long they could actually keep up the fight before things started breaking down.

indigi posted:

but why does rejoining ukraine (which was their aim in 2014, not after 8 years of war) promise to end things any sooner than full independence or joining Russia? Ukraine clearly isn’t interested in any of those options and haven’t ever been

a primate posted:

With the amount of kleptocracy going on in Ukraine, I'm surprised Russia needs to invade at all. Why not just buy out everyone with a pulse? Might be cheaper than deploying tanks.

Lyndon LaRouche posted:

Nothing to see here. https://twitter.com/Veryonline2/status/1496275271179444225?s=20&t=hFIb3-fafwOJTg4vFPzGFA

SorePotato posted:

The discourse is out of this world rn. Personally I hope Xi Jinping comes out on top here

Cpt_Obvious posted:

They can't outbid the Americans.

Lostconfused posted:

Yeah but that's been happening even before Maidan.

Ardennes posted:

Also, I still don’t know where the whole thing about the Russian military being “crap” at this point comes from, especially since there has been a pretty clear demonstration of their capabilities in recent years.

Cpt_Obvious posted:

It's just loving batty to me to believe that the American military which hasn't won a significant conflict in almost 80 years is viewed as some super competent power house. Every single one of us has watched them spend 20 years losing multiple wars against enemies with nothing but home made explosives and small arms but a real military is gonna be done sort of cake walk. Like it's actually a good thing that Russia can shoot down drones, actually!

Cpt_Obvious posted:

It's just loving batty to me to believe that the American military which hasn't won a significant conflict in almost 80 years is viewed as some super competent power house. Every single one of us has watched them spend 20 years losing multiple wars against enemies with nothing but home made explosives and small arms but a real military is gonna be done sort of cake walk. Like it's actually a good thing that Russia can shoot down drones, actually!

Flayer posted:

The US military is a specialist at losing politically by failing to deal with insurgencies but in conventional warfare is unsurpassed. Look at the wars against Iraq. Nobody else has been mad enough to try and take the US military on toe to toe because it is a suicidal action.

AnimeIsTrash posted:

goon named kill all cops: y'all are being too ablist