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Shoygu is the only person who has made their way into Putin's inner circle without being part of the OG St Petersburg mafia. He very much understands that the job is to make the boss look good, not rock any boats and let the right people get their snouts to the trough, and be loyal.
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Feb 24, 2023 14:12
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Shoygu's mediocrity is a feature, not a bug. If you're asking yourself "Why is this barely qualified person the head of Russia's military?" then you're unlikely to back him in a coup attempt.
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Feb 24, 2023 14:35
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The fact that he is a Tuvan and not a Russian also helps with this
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Feb 24, 2023 14:59
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yeah. the fact that all these guys hate Shoigu means that Shoigu is completely & proactively loyal to Putin; Shoigu has no place in anyone elses version of Russia, and he knows it.
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Feb 24, 2023 15:18
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Prigozhin's ambitions have never gotten past the and then ??????????? happens and he becomes MoD, except probably there'd need to be a couple of ??????????? steps for that to happen. That said, he's also been hard to get rid of and even harder to silence despite clearly being on several powerful people's poo poo lists. He appears to finally be falling out of Putin's graces, but also Wagner claims to be getting supplied again so honestly who really knows what's going on there. Mokotow posted:Putin's dependence and ties to Shoygu are all the more perplexing, since he's just a really, really poor choice for the minister of defense. As a career civil engineer, he's only real connection to the army if through the civil defense organization, which has very little to do with running an offensive-oriented modern military. I guess Prigozhin was banking on using this against Shoygu, but it's not as if he himself has a stronger claim to the ministry, other than really being into guns and uniforms. In the long run, it's better for Russia's opponents for these two to be stuck in a perpetual headlock, because it stops anyone more competent emerging through the ranks. Putin's puppet master mentality promotes mediocrity first and foremost among his underlings to keep them in line. On the other hand, he's extremely loyal to Putin. Herstory Begins Now fucked around with this message at 15:36 on Feb 24, 2023 |
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Feb 24, 2023 15:26
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Onet is reporting Morawiecki personally delivered Polish Leopard 2s to Ukraine. Not clear about the number (so far we've committed to delivering twelve), not seeing confirmation elsewhere just yet, but they're quoting a presidential briefing in the National Security Council.
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Feb 24, 2023 15:28
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Kuivashev posted:If every businessman who makes money on school lunches tries to rule the country, we won't get too far. Everyone should do their job. You fry your burgers and boil your pasta, and we'll manage ourselves where we are. "Now go home and get your loving shinebox"
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Feb 24, 2023 15:39
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Mokotow posted:Putin's dependence and ties to Shoygu are all the more perplexing, since he's just a really, really poor choice for the minister of defense. As a career civil engineer, he's only real connection to the army if through the civil defense organization, which has very little to do with running an offensive-oriented modern military. I guess Prigozhin was banking on using this against Shoygu, but it's not as if he himself has a stronger claim to the ministry, other than really being into guns and uniforms. In the long run, it's better for Russia's opponents for these two to be stuck in a perpetual headlock, because it stops anyone more competent emerging through the ranks. Putin's puppet master mentality promotes mediocrity first and foremost among his underlings to keep them in line. I am not a Kremlinologist, and Michael Koffman does not claim to be but has what I think is a reasonable perspective on this. His take is that Shoygu wins this little spat with Prigozhin, and it won't even be close. It's not that autocratic regimes promote incompetence first, it's that competence is not the first virtue: loyalty is. Shoygu is loyal to the regime, has always been loyal to the regime, and shows no signs of ever being disloyal to the regime. He and Putin have history together. For Russian-speaking goons: is "Shoygu" or "Shoigu" more correct? Does it matter?
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Feb 24, 2023 15:47
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Ynglaur posted:For Russian-speaking goons: is "Shoygu" or "Shoigu" more correct? Does it matter? It doesn't entirely matter, and it's subjective which is "better." "Shoigu" is apparently the official transliteration, but the letter in Russian is й, which is equivalent to the 'y' in "yesterday" or "boy." I learned to transliterate it as a 'y' in school 20-25 years ago, but from what I've seen on both Russian and Ukrainian passports, 'i' is the current standard both for 'й' and for iotified vowels like 'я' (which yields stupid looking results in English, like "Liliia" for "Лілія/Лилия").
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Feb 24, 2023 16:13
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Every other language has a better transcription system than English.
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Feb 24, 2023 16:18
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The Chinese Peace plan aka inane ramblingquote:China’s Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis
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Feb 24, 2023 16:27
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Wow, I legit was not expecting China to drop that. Maybe *we* were overthinking it.
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Feb 24, 2023 16:33
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Groda posted:Every other language has a better transcription system than English. German doesn't! See: "schtsch" for "щ"
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Feb 24, 2023 16:37
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Charlotte Hornets posted:The Chinese Peace plan aka inane rambling Completely contradicting #1 with the rest. Anyway, it's probably not concrete enough to matter?
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Feb 24, 2023 16:43
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Neorxenawang posted:It doesn't entirely matter, and it's subjective which is "better." "Shoigu" is apparently the official transliteration, but the letter in Russian is й, which is equivalent to the 'y' in "yesterday" or "boy." basically yeah. it depends on your transliteration methods, like if you spell Достоевский - Dostoevskiy, Dostoevsky, Dostoevskiĭ. i don't know which one is in vogue at the moment because i have successfully burned away all the memories of forced russianist training i got in grad school.
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Feb 24, 2023 16:51
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Charlotte Hornets posted:The Chinese Peace plan aka inane rambling 1: Standard pleasant sounding fluff about diplomatic principles, which are designed to make the rest of the proposal easier to swallow. You can be assured every single one of these principles will be contradicted in full later on in the proposal. 2: The security of a country should not be pursued at the expense of others - although this only applies to countries other than us and our partners. A balanced, effective and sustainable European security architecture should be formed... based upon the insistence that small and medium European countries have no right to ally themselves together against a would-be regional hegemon, and certainly have no right to align themselves with the US. Instead, they must accept a model which places the wannabe regional hegemon in a position of entrenched privilege that allows it to militarily dominate and bully its neighbours. We haven't written it outright, but having such a model in Asia too would be great! 3&4: All parties should support Russia and Ukraine in working in the same direction and resuming direct dialogue as quickly as possible, so as to gradually deescalate the situation and ultimately reach a comprehensive ceasefire... ie: the West must immediately drop its support for Ukraine and pressure it into accepting a ceasefire as soon as possible, in order to freeze the current battlelines before Russia's position deteriorates further, and give them time to entrench themselves and make these the new de facto borders. 5, 6 & 7: Filler fluff we don't really care about, but include to make our proposal look reasonable 8: The United States must admit to and shut down its biological weapons labs in Ukraine that are clearly targetted at Russia. 9: Agreements like the Grain Deal, where Russia gets a disproportionate say and can disrupt it at any time for political leverage, should be the model for any future agreements. 10: All sanctions on Russia must immediately be lifted. Countries shouldn't suffer consequences for attacking others. Unless its our enemies. 11: Don't you loving dare touch our exports. 12: We want in on any juicy contracts to help rebuild Ukrainian infrastructure.
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Feb 24, 2023 16:56
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OddObserver posted:Completely contradicting #1 with the rest. Anyway, it's probably not concrete enough to matter? Yeah, this seems to be a decorum thing and everyone is “well ok, thanks, noted” it. Ynglaur posted:For Russian-speaking goons: is "Shoygu" or "Shoigu" more correct? Does it matter? You'll be understood either way, adding to Neorxenawang's post. I'm on the more traditionalist end of the spectrum here, being a ё user and all (don't ask). Alchenar posted:Shoygu is the only person who has made their way into Putin's inner circle without being part of the OG St Petersburg mafia. He very much understands that the job is to make the boss look good, not rock any boats and let the right people get their snouts to the trough, and be loyal. This was his MoD origin story – the previous minister was actually good at his job and added such novel features to the Russian army as an accounting department, and in general cooked a lot of upsetti for the MIC lobby and the boyar class of logistics sergeants. Shoygu was thrown in to calm the situation down by behaving expectedly and just taking all bribes from everyone and doling them up and to the sides appropriately. Paladinus posted:Prigozhyn is now beefing with the Sverdlov governor Kuivashev. He chastised him and other local officials who don't want to give Wagner mercenaries proper burials with military honours. While I've not generally enjoyed witnessing Russia travel back in time through the last year, if the one consequence of it is going to be a Prigozhin-Beglov pistol duel, then I'm here for it. cinci zoo sniper fucked around with this message at 17:01 on Feb 24, 2023 |
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Feb 24, 2023 16:59
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Tomn posted:Judging from the D&D Chinathread, Chinese intellectual circles have some really weird ideas about how Europe works and what they want. In particular it seems they regard Europe as being basically France and Germany, both of are effectively American vassal states who long to slip free of the iron grip of Washington to form a new independent superpower, most realistically by allying with Russia (the other great European power) to form a new power bloc so that they too can jockey for influence and spread their imperial wings once more (from which they’re currently being prevented by the US, who fears their vassals becoming too powerful). If this is true they have things really upside down. The US can gently caress off whenever it feels like and lose only credibility, the Europeans are the ones who have to live next to Russia and Ukraine. Also regarding the Chinese peace plan, the idea that all sanctions have to go through the security council, which Russia has a veto over, is just precious.
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Feb 24, 2023 17:18
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Tigey posted:5, 6 & 7: Filler fluff we don't really care about, but include to make our proposal look reasonable Note that the only nuclear power plant anywhere near the front lines is currently under Russian occupation, so #7 is actually an injunction against Ukraine trying to reclaim its own territory.
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Feb 24, 2023 17:48
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Speaking of peace proposals, the UN vote on Ukraine (with mildly diluted Zelenskyy's peace plan) seems to have been a resounding success despite Belarus trying to submit Russia's proposals as their own.
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Feb 24, 2023 17:55
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Everything in China's position is stuff they've already said a dozen times previously - territorial integrety good, arms delivery bad, legitimate security concerns. I'm not sure why it got hyped up so much.
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Feb 24, 2023 17:57
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cinci zoo sniper posted:
This is really the most important part of transliteration tho Syemyon vs Semen One is correct, one is the funny one that someone should use
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Feb 24, 2023 17:58
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Literally no one on this planet transliterates e as ye.
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Feb 24, 2023 18:04
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To me the most significant part of China's position paper is that there's nothing about supplying arms, which they've criticised in the past. May be an indication they're about to start arming their preferred side.
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Feb 24, 2023 18:05
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Shoigu/Shoygu is at least phonetically interchangeable, unlike Khrushchev and Gorbachev being somewhat intentionally misleading if you don't know about the е/ё orthography nonsense in the original. The former gets bonus points for having consonants that don't exist in English, so you often hear "Krooshchev" instead of the correct х, щ, and ё IIRC Shoigu, aside from being very loyal, entered Putin's good graces by successfully building MChS into a well-reputed agency from essentially nothing and then being the designated MinOborony outsider who came in and told all the entrenched Soviet officers to get in line with the new regime or get out. can't recall whatever article i read detailing his rise though.
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Feb 24, 2023 18:07
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In other news if Sweden actually does as rumored and commit to donating 10 Leo 2s that would get to the promised 2 battalions worth of Leo's.
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Feb 24, 2023 18:10
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Charlz Guybon posted:This would be good When's the last time we've seen a Russian T80 destroyed? I feel like it's been an eternity.
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Feb 24, 2023 18:19
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https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russias-medvedev-floats-idea-pushing-back-polands-borders-2023-02-24/ You and what army there, bud? Is the Russian internal media so disassociated that they can see this kind of Sabre rattling as anything other than self-destructive?
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Feb 24, 2023 18:19
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^^^ It's Medvedev. Unhinged ranting (and apparently Niki II cosplay if that photo was real?) is all he does these days. Henrik Zetterberg posted:When's the last time we've seen a Russian T80 destroyed? I feel like it's been an eternity. There is one on Oryx's list for yesterday, 2 on the previous update. (Actual destruction may have been earlier)
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Feb 24, 2023 18:38
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MrYenko posted:Is the Russian internal media so disassociated that they can see this kind of Sabre rattling as anything other than self-destructive? Yes, this is a “we don't have a small penis” thing in their internal media. That said, Medvedev has been visibly descending into alcoholism throughout the year, and is a bit out there even for the local soapbox screamers.
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Feb 24, 2023 18:45
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Irony Be My Shield posted:To me the most significant part of China's position paper is that there's nothing about supplying arms, which they've criticised in the past. May be an indication they're about to start arming their preferred side. Probably a safe bet. There's not much of a call to action here, so it mostly looks like an attempt to establish moral high ground for some other effort.
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Feb 24, 2023 18:55
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https://twitter.com/emiliovigil5/status/1629097972473421824?s=20
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Feb 24, 2023 19:00
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MrYenko posted:https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russias-medvedev-floats-idea-pushing-back-polands-borders-2023-02-24/ I cant remember where, but i read someone somewhere once musing that Kremlin likes to have these far out jesters spout crazytalk , just so that Kremlins own rethoric looks reasonable in comparison. And i tend to agree with that theory, every russian talk show look like the participants are trying to out do each other in crazy talk.
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Feb 24, 2023 19:07
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There are two "oral history" articles out, one from Politico focusing on the US perspective in the year or so leading up to the invasion and one from the Washington Post about world leaders' reactions the first day of the invasion. Neither are paywalled, I believe, but let me know if the WaPo one is and I'll copy/paste it. Politico: ‘Something Was Badly Wrong’: When Washington Realized Russia Was Actually Invading Ukraine WaPo: Leaders recall dismay, fury on first day of war in Ukraine Teaser: quote:As the invasion began, Putin appeared on Russian television to announce the beginning of what he called a “special military operation.” Johnson was awakened by a call from one of his advisers. The British prime minister responded with an obscenity directed at Putin: “That f---ing c---.” Moon Slayer fucked around with this message at 19:22 on Feb 24, 2023 |
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Feb 24, 2023 19:20
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NoiseAnnoys posted:basically yeah. it depends on your transliteration methods, like if you spell Достоевский - Dostoevskiy, Dostoevsky, Dostoevskiĭ. i don't know which one is in vogue at the moment because i have successfully burned away all the memories of forced russianist training i got in grad school. Hm, wouldn't a more accurate translitteration be Dostoyevski? Similar to how it is in Finnish (where "je" = english "ye" more or less, "jo" = "yo" (short o) and so on: https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fjodor_Dostojevski)
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Feb 24, 2023 19:33
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jaete posted:Hm, wouldn't a more accurate translitteration be Dostoyevski? Similar to how it is in Finnish (where "je" = english "ye" more or less, "jo" = "yo" (short o) and so on: https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fjodor_Dostojevski) That's eating the last sound. It's [dəstɐˈjefskʲɪj], not [dəstɐˈjefskʲɪ] OddObserver fucked around with this message at 19:38 on Feb 24, 2023 |
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Feb 24, 2023 19:36
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cinci zoo sniper posted:Yes, this is a “we don't have a small penis” thing in their internal media. That said, Medvedev has been visibly descending into alcoholism throughout the year, and is a bit out there even for the local soapbox screamers. Medvedev is weird. He had his shot at the big time, he lost Putin's favor as heir, and he's just been on a downward spiral. He maybe hopes that if he's insanely jingoistic enough he will be tapped as successor again.
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Feb 24, 2023 19:37
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jaete posted:Hm, wouldn't a more accurate translitteration be Dostoyevski? Similar to how it is in Finnish (where "je" = english "ye" more or less, "jo" = "yo" (short o) and so on: https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fjodor_Dostojevski) Yes, е is pronounced either ye if at the beginning of word or after wovel or e (as in Lenin) after a consonant. But there's lots of historical spellings, for example Lev Trotsky is known as Leon in anglosphere (both mean lion). Personally I believe we should call the regent of UK as Kaarle instead of Charles, I'm disgusted by people who think they can change the rules at whim - how do you get from Kaarle I to Kaarle II to Charles III I ask you???)
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Feb 24, 2023 19:41
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Just heard from radio news that Zelensky says he will meet with Xi. It would be funny if they had a candid talk and Volodimir was able to pull just the right strings for Xi to start putting actual pressure on Putin. Not that I expect that to happen, but one can dream...
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Feb 24, 2023 20:04
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Nenonen posted:Just heard from radio news that Zelensky says he will meet with Xi. It would be funny if they had a candid talk and Volodimir was able to pull just the right strings for Xi to start putting actual pressure on Putin. Not that I expect that to happen, but one can dream...
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Feb 24, 2023 20:17
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