[Ukraine] EU: Nice minister, shame if something were to happen...

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evilmiera: Dec 14, 2009; Status: Ravenously Rambunctious

mila kunis posted:

sino soviet split is officially over

https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1628871635238285314

So everyone that said that China would never supply Russia with war materiel and that was just a big ol CIA talking point were full of poo poo?

# ? Feb 24, 2023 20:51

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# ? May 26, 2024 08:56

Pretzel Rod Serling: Aug 6, 2008

euphronius posted:

I�m not clicking can you summarize

I�m also not clicking but they can�t lol

# ? Feb 24, 2023 20:55

Dr. Jerrold Coe: Feb 6, 2021; Is it me?

[Chorus: Brad Paisley (w/ LL Cool J ad libs)]
I'm just a white man
(If you don't judge my durag)
Comin' to you from the southland
(I won't judge your red flag)
Tryin' to understand what it's like not to be
(Yeah)
I'm proud of where I'm from
(If you don't judge my gold chains)
But not everything we've done
(I'll forget the iron chains)
It ain't like you and me can re-write history
(Can't re-write history baby)

# ? Feb 24, 2023 20:55

Slim Jim Pickens: Jan 16, 2012

BadOptics posted:

Lol, they didn't even make Ukraine apparent on the globe. You can feel how authentic that is.

The only country I serve is North Atlantic

# ? Feb 24, 2023 20:59

Ardennes: May 12, 2002

sum posted:

Apparently the Ukrainian government's strategy of having businesses do the bureaucratic legwork of mobilization is, shockingly, causing problems for both the economy and the army. I'm interested to see if they're able to reform this, or if they're at least able to crackdown on evaders. It seems like a big problem for the manpower pipeline if they can't get this system fixed.

_{(from t.me/MediaKiller2021/6746, via tgsa)}

Quark was right

�..

Also, that Politico article really leans into a �a little ethnic cleaning would only be fair.�

Ardennes has issued a correction as of 21:10 on Feb 24, 2023

# ? Feb 24, 2023 21:00

Turtle Sandbox: Dec 31, 2007; by Fluffdaddy

Cao Ni Ma posted:

Can we get a few of the resident libs in the thread to go on the record on whether ukraine will invade moldova/transistria and if whether or not its good/bad. I want to have a preview of what the narrative might be from the media if it happens

The war spilling out of Ukraine just pushes the world closer to WWIII.

# ? Feb 24, 2023 21:19

Deadly Ham Sandwich: Aug 19, 2009; Smellrose

Frosted Flake posted:

List of "active" Ukrainian Navy "ships"

Is that a lobster boat?

Jel Shaker posted:

sorry for the long post but it�s the first article i�ve seen in the mainstream british press which is vaguely on this planet

It's a good article. Thanks for posting it. I'm pretty curious what is the sentiment in other countries to the Ukrainian war. I'm not surprised that American and British newspapers are pushing the line the US government wants.

I find a very different reaction speaking to people in person. Anyone I know in finance or government 100% believed this is a proxy war by the US over material reasons, like US being a gas exporter and needing a new war to replace Afghanistan.

Deadly Ham Sandwich has issued a correction as of 21:37 on Feb 24, 2023

# ? Feb 24, 2023 21:33

OctaMurk: Jun 21, 2013

Nonsense posted:

the Japanese humiliated the British at Singapore. hundreds of thousands of British troops surrendered to a force of 30k Japanese who invaded from the north of the peninsula. all the British weapons faced out to sea.

it was a lot and an utterly tremendous blow, but i dont think it was hundreds of thousands was it

# ? Feb 24, 2023 21:33

Turtle Sandbox: Dec 31, 2007; by Fluffdaddy

mila kunis posted:

It accelerates decoupling trade and supply chains from china. So far there hasn't been any credible moral argument towards breaking links with china, but if they became directly complicit in the illegal invasion and occupation of Ukraine, it would be hard for the west not to act. Pro-china voices in the west, such as they are, would be shut down completely.

Americans cannot live without their treats that come from china, lol.

# ? Feb 24, 2023 21:35

Nonsense: Jan 26, 2007

OctaMurk posted:

it was a lot and an utterly tremendous blow, but i dont think it was hundreds of thousands was it

yeah I hosed that up, it was around 90k men, apparently it was just one big surrender without really fighting the invasion force.

# ? Feb 24, 2023 21:35

Cerebral Bore: Apr 21, 2010; Fun Shoe

Frosted Flake posted:

List of "active" Ukrainian Navy "ships"

you're making fun of that boat, but i'll have you know that it's half of the most devastating combined arms assault known to man

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g80BK0Egxk8

# ? Feb 24, 2023 21:41

mila kunis: Jun 10, 2011

Jel Shaker posted:

For years, Putin didn�t invade Ukraine. What made him finally snap in 2022?

Why did Vladimir Putin invade Ukraine and try to capture Kyiv in February 2022, and not years earlier? Moscow has always wanted to dominate Ukraine, and Putin has given the reasons for this in his speeches and writings. Why then did he not try to take all or most of the country after the Ukrainian revolution of 2014, rather than only annexing Crimea, and giving limited, semi-covert help to separatists in the Donbas?

On Friday�s one-year anniversary of Russia�s criminal invasion of Ukraine, it is worth thinking about precisely how we got to this point � and where things might be going.

Indeed, Russian hardliners spent years criticising their leader for not invading sooner. In 2014, the Ukrainian army was hopelessly weak; in Viktor Yanukovych, the Russians had a pro-Russian, democratically elected Ukrainian president; and incidents like the killing of pro-Russian demonstrators in Odesa provided a good pretext for action.

The reason for Putin�s past restraint lies in what was a core part of Russian strategy dating back to the 1990s: trying to wedge more distance between Europe and the United States, and ultimately to create a new security order in Europe with Russia as a full partner and respected power. It was always clear that a full-scale invasion of Ukraine would destroy any hope of rapprochement with the western Europeans, driving them for the foreseeable future into the arms of the US. Simultaneously, such a move would leave Russia diplomatically isolated and dangerously dependent on China.

This Russian strategy was correctly seen as an attempt to split the west, and cement a Russian sphere of influence in the states of the former Soviet Union. However, having a European security order with Russia at the table would also have removed the risk of a Russian attack on Nato, the EU, and most likely, Ukraine; and allowed Moscow to exert a looser influence over its neighbours � closer perhaps to the present approach of the US to Central America � rather than gripping them tightly. It was an approach that had roots in Mikhail Gorbachev�s idea � welcomed in the west at the time � of a �common European home�.

At one time, Putin subscribed to this idea. He wrote in 2012 that: �Russia is an inseparable, organic part of Greater Europe, of the wider European civilisation. Our citizens feel themselves to be Europeans.� This vision has now been abandoned in favour of the concept of Russia as a separate �Eurasian civilisation�.

Between 1999, when Putin came to power, and 2020, when Biden was elected president of the US, this Russian strategy experienced severe disappointments, but also enough encouraging signs from Paris and Berlin to keep it alive.

The most systematic Russian attempt to negotiate a new European security order came with the interim presidency of Dmitry Medvedev from 2008 to 2012. With Putin�s approval, he proposed a European security treaty that would have frozen Nato enlargement, effectively ensured the neutrality of Ukraine and other states, and institutionalised consultation on equal terms between Russia and leading western countries. But western states barely even pretended to take these proposals seriously.

In 2014, it appears to have been Chancellor Angela Merkel�s warnings of �massive damage� to Russia and German-Russian relations that persuaded Putin to call a halt to the advance of the Russian-backed separatists in the Donbas. In return, Germany refused to arm Ukraine, and with France, brokered the Minsk 2 agreement, whereby the Donbas would return to Ukraine as an autonomous territory.

In 2016, Russian hopes of a split between western Europe and the United States were revived by the election of Donald Trump � not because of any specific policy, rather because of the strong hostility that he provoked in Europe. But Biden�s election brought the US administration and west European establishments back together again. These years also saw Ukraine refuse to guarantee autonomy for the Donbas, and western failure to put any pressure on Kyiv to do so.

This was accompanied by other developments that made Putin decide to bring matters concerning Ukraine to a head. These included the US-Ukrainian Strategic Partnership of November 2021, which held out the prospect of Ukraine becoming a heavily armed US ally in all but name, while continuing to threaten to retake the Donbas by force.

In recent months, the German and French leaders in 2015, Merkel and Fran�ois Hollande, have declared that the Minsk 2 agreement on Donbas autonomy was only a manoeuvre on their part to allow the Ukrainians the time to build up their armed forces. This is what Russian hardliners always believed, and by 2022, Putin himself seems to have come to the same conclusion.

Nonetheless, almost until the eve of invasion, Putin continued unsuccessfully to press the French president, Emmanuel Macron, in particular to support a treaty of neutrality for Ukraine and negotiate directly with the separatist leaders in the Donbas. We cannot, of course, say for sure if this would have led Putin to call off the invasion; but since it would have opened up a deep split between Paris and Washington, such a move by Macron might well have revived in Putin�s mind the old and deeply held Russian strategy of trying to divide the west and forge agreement with France and Germany.

Putin now seems to agree fully with Russian hardline nationalists that no western government can be trusted, and that the west as a whole is implacably hostile to Russia. He remains, however, vulnerable to attack from those same hardliners, both because of the deep incompetence with which the invasion was conducted, and because their charge that he was previously naive about the hopes of rapprochement with Europe appears to have been completely vindicated.

It is from this side, not the Russian liberals, that the greatest threat to his rule now comes; and of course this makes it even more difficult for Putin to seek any peace that does not have some appearance, at least, of Russian victory.

Meanwhile, the Russian invasion and its accompanying atrocities have destroyed whatever genuine sympathy for Russia existed in the French and German establishments. A peaceful and consensual security order in Europe looks very far away. But while Putin and his criminal invasion of Ukraine are chiefly responsible for this, we should also recognise that western and central Europeans also did far too little to try to keep Gorbachev�s dream of a common European home alive.

Anatol Lieven is director of the Eurasia programme at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft

sorry for the long post but it�s the first article i�ve seen in the mainstream british press which is vaguely on this planet

Astonishing that the guardian allowed this to be published under their banner

# ? Feb 24, 2023 21:47

Lostconfused: Oct 1, 2008

Zvezdanews posted:

❗️❗️❗️❗️Russian Foreign Ministry praised Beijing's desire to contribute to the resolution of the conflict in Ukraine by peaceful means. This refers to China's position on a political solution to the Ukrainian crisis, which was published the day before.

What else the Russian diplomatic office said on this topic:

▪️ Russian Foreign Ministry shares Beijing's views;

▪️Like PRC, we consider any restrictive measures not authorized by the UN Security Council to be illegitimate; these are elements of economic warfare;

▪️ Primary obstacle to a peaceful settlement in Ukraine is Zelensky's decree that it is "impossible" to negotiate with Putin;

▪️Russia is open to achieving NWO goals by political-diplomatic means;

▪️Russia back in 2021 tried to reach agreements on security guarantees, we regret that our proposals were rejected by the West;

▪️It is necessary to stop supplying Western weapons and mercenaries to Ukraine, end hostilities, return Ukraine to neutral non-aligned status;

▪️ Ukraine must recognize the new territorial realities resulting from the realization of the right of peoples to self-determination;

▪️Elimination of all threats emanating from the territory of Ukraine, demilitarization and denazification;

▪️Citizens of Ukraine, including the Russian-speaking population and members of national minorities, must be guaranteed all inalienable rights;

▪️Kiev must repeal all illegal restrictive measures and withdraw politicized lawsuits in international courts;

▪️Ukraine in April 2022 terminated its own initiated peace talks with Russia.

❗️Russian Foreign Ministry also stated that progress along this path would lead to a comprehensive, just and sustainable peace.

⭐️ Подписаться на Zvezdanews | *️⃣ Предложить новость

_{(from t.me/zvezdanews/110673, via tgsa)}

# ? Feb 24, 2023 21:55

Ardennes: May 12, 2002

Nonsense posted:

yeah I hosed that up, it was around 90k men, apparently it was just one big surrender without really fighting the invasion force.

There was some fighting but once Japanese forces breached Singapore Island itself, there was no where for the British to go to (and far too late for an evacuation).

# ? Feb 24, 2023 21:56

genericnick: Dec 26, 2012

evilmiera posted:

So everyone that said that China would never supply Russia with war materiel and that was just a big ol CIA talking point were full of poo poo?

idk, but I don't think anyone claimed that China would never supply Russia with war material, and also there's no mention of who the SPIEGEL's source or sources are. You'd think they'd be more careful after the Relotius fiasco, but who can say.

# ? Feb 24, 2023 22:04

Cromulent_Chill: Apr 6, 2009

evilmiera posted:

So everyone that said that China would never supply Russia with war materiel and that was just a big ol CIA talking point were full of poo poo?

CSPAM doesn't make policy, it makes guesses. Being wrong isn't the same as being full of poo poo. That's a pretty basic concept.

# ? Feb 24, 2023 22:12

Pistol_Pete: Sep 15, 2007; Oven Wrangler

mila kunis posted:

Astonishing that the guardian allowed this to be published under their banner

Looking at the comments section, I remember when the Guardian allowed comments to be posted beneath all of the articles; now it's an ever shrinking minority where the plebs are permitted to express their own thoughts.

# ? Feb 24, 2023 22:15

Pretzel Rod Serling: Aug 6, 2008

did we all talk about this lmao

https://twitter.com/abc/status/1628926463326973952?s=46&t=JF8LOXP-Zm6bHlC0OChMXQ

# ? Feb 24, 2023 22:18

Regarde Aduck: Oct 19, 2012; c l o u d k i t t e n; Grimey Drawer

Pretzel Rod Stewart posted:

did we all talk about this lmao

https://twitter.com/abc/status/1628926463326973952?s=46&t=JF8LOXP-Zm6bHlC0OChMXQ

drat i wonder if this might be a problem if some of the population are ethnic Russians. I can see something like that causing unrest you know? Anyway, gently caress you Putin for your reasonless war!!!!!!!!!

# ? Feb 24, 2023 22:20

Lostconfused: Oct 1, 2008

Yeah it was posted once before, but what is there to say really.

At least they're not burning them?

# ? Feb 24, 2023 22:21

Ardennes: May 12, 2002

Btw, Bingo denied they were sending the drones.

# ? Feb 24, 2023 22:22

Regarde Aduck: Oct 19, 2012; c l o u d k i t t e n; Grimey Drawer

evilmiera posted:

So everyone that said that China would never supply Russia with war materiel and that was just a big ol CIA talking point were full of poo poo?

no, they were guessed wrong. You do realise no one here is a geopolitical analyst and we're allowed to guess and talk poo poo right?

Also, in this case being wrong is really loving cool

edit:

Ardennes posted:

Btw, Bingo denied they were sending the drones.

poo poo! gently caress!

# ? Feb 24, 2023 22:22

Lord of Pie: Mar 2, 2007

Nonsense posted:

the Japanese humiliated the British at Singapore. hundreds of thousands of British troops surrendered to a force of 30k Japanese who invaded from the north of the peninsula. all the British weapons faced out to sea.

the naval battle was also a total clown shoes affair

# ? Feb 24, 2023 22:25

Dreylad: Jun 19, 2001

sum posted:

Apparently the Ukrainian government's strategy of having businesses do the bureaucratic legwork of mobilization is, shockingly, causing problems for both the economy and the army. I'm interested to see if they're able to reform this, or if they're at least able to crackdown on evaders. It seems like a big problem for the manpower pipeline if they can't get this system fixed.

_{(from t.me/MediaKiller2021/6746, via tgsa)}

I remember reading this article a while ago and it kind of covers the same ground, only there hadn't been a ton of results yet from the neoliberal mobilization of Ukraine.

I'm not sure about the historical details entirely in the article but it seems to follow that Ukraine is a bit of a grand experiment in all this. Old forms of mobilization required heavy government intervention because why would you let business run your war economy with no oversight? But here we are.

also fun bits about ukraine's tax system:

quote:

Huge increases in military expenditures in Ukraine�s 2023 budget have mostly been financed through steep cuts to other areas. While heavy spending on the war is understandable, Ukraine has refused to increase its domestic tax base. The self-employed pay a tax rate of just 5 percent and an additional war levy of 3 percent. Many salaried professionals are employed on these contracts to benefit from this ultra-low taxation.

Ukraine�s tax system is in general highly regressive by international standards. Personal income tax is 18 percent, and there is no distinction in rate between high and low earners. Introducing a wealth tax or raising the corporate tax, which currently stands at 18 percent, could also support the war effort. Yet the government seems to be moving in the opposite direction. They are preparing a tax reform that would see corporation tax, income tax, and VAT (currently 20 percent) all cut to just 10 percent.

Where the IMF and World Bank might once have cheered on such a policy framework, they are today much more critical. The IMF warned prior to the full-scale Russian invasion that Ukraine�s tax code is �relatively weak on progressivity.� The World Bank has argued that �flat rates impose a disproportionate burden on the least well off.� In light of this opposition, the Ukrainian government has launched a public campaign to persuade global lenders that its tax cuts are advisable.

lmao jesus christ

# ? Feb 24, 2023 22:25

Al-Saqr: Nov 11, 2007; One Day I Will Return To Your Side.

oh poo poo wwhy did no one tell me i couldve stopped russias intervention in syria if i had simply burned and recycled my copies of pushkin and dostoyevski and tolstoy if only i had known!!

# ? Feb 24, 2023 22:30

Pretzel Rod Serling: Aug 6, 2008

Lostconfused posted:

At least they're not burning them?

pulping them is just liberal burning them

# ? Feb 24, 2023 22:30

DancingShade: Jul 26, 2007; by Fluffdaddy

euphronius posted:

what is the USA going to do, blockade all the worlds ports ?

Become increasingly difficult and high risk for anyone to deal with. Long term isolation as a result.

I'm referring to the USA if it was unclear.

# ? Feb 24, 2023 22:30

Pistol_Pete: Sep 15, 2007; Oven Wrangler

Lord of Pie posted:

the naval battle was also a total clown shoes affair

Wasn't that where it was discovered that enormous battleships designed to fire big shells at other ships are extremely vulnerable to even a small number of enemy aircraft, if they don't have any air support themselves.

# ? Feb 24, 2023 22:31

DancingShade: Jul 26, 2007; by Fluffdaddy

Death By The Blues posted:

Am I reading this right? Iranian boots on the ground in Ukraine for fighter jets lol?

https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1629190464438956033

That's capital E evidence too, must be like super evidence to be Evidence.

(turning slowly to camera)

Let's trust it sight unseen.

# ? Feb 24, 2023 22:33

Starsfan: Sep 29, 2007; This is what happens when you disrespect Cam Neely

Ardennes posted:

There was some fighting but once Japanese forces breached Singapore Island itself, there was no where for the British to go to (and far too late for an evacuation).

I think also a contributing factor to that many soldiers surrendering was that the local Japanese commander sold the British commanders a bill of goods on how they and the City (who i guess the British felt some duty to preserve if possible) would be treated after they surrendered which was promptly reneged on point by point after the British surrendered and they were all marched off to camps lol.

It was one of the really early warning signs that the Japanese army may not have been the most honest brokers in the world.

# ? Feb 24, 2023 22:34

Regarde Aduck: Oct 19, 2012; c l o u d k i t t e n; Grimey Drawer

Nonsense posted:

the Japanese humiliated the British at Singapore. hundreds of thousands of British troops surrendered to a force of 30k Japanese who invaded from the north of the peninsula. all the British weapons faced out to sea.

as a dumb brit the amount of battles where i think we did well is like... pegasus bridge, certain parts of market garden, ummm... we got our beaches at Normandy without much trouble... I guess we did ok in Africa overall

# ? Feb 24, 2023 22:35

comedyblissoption: Mar 15, 2006

Regarde Aduck posted:

UK news going hard on Bucha today to remind everyone why this war can't end. Lots of mentions of how Ukraine must reclaim all the lost land. The existence of the DNR and LNR didn't get mentioned and they rarely do at the best of times. I guess it gets awkward to acknowledge that the population in those areas do not want 'liberating' by Ukraine.

Kinda waiting for western press to drop the mask and sideways back the obvious genocide that it would take to reclaim those areas.

npr this morning was talking about a supermajority of ukranians not accepting an end to the war unless all territory including crimea was returned

# ? Feb 24, 2023 22:37

DancingShade: Jul 26, 2007; by Fluffdaddy

comedyblissoption posted:

npr this morning was talking about a supermajority of ukranians not accepting an end to the war unless all territory including crimea was returned

Any Ukranians who suggested otherwise were immediately labelled a pro-Russian sympathiser, rounded up and ~~shot~~ taught the error of their dangerous ways of thinking.

# ? Feb 24, 2023 22:39

Lostconfused: Oct 1, 2008

To be fair, people only get like a couple of years in prison for doing a no no like that, not summary execution.

# ? Feb 24, 2023 22:41

PawParole: Nov 16, 2019

Every insane neocon faction is trying to tie this war into their pet hatred.

# ? Feb 24, 2023 22:42

comedyblissoption: Mar 15, 2006

Mr Hootington posted:

https://twitter.com/business/status/1629092862716440578?t=94xlDsLT3HeLK6EXw2BOHg&s=19
Lol

https://twitter.com/chenweihua/status/1629088061924511744

# ? Feb 24, 2023 22:42

Ardennes: May 12, 2002

I am not that surprised, more than Ukrainian war goals, the US has been looking to kick the Russians out of Sevastopol for quite a while, and it really seems like all the arms they are building up are for it. It is a bit of uphill battle.

# ? Feb 24, 2023 22:43

Cerebral Bore: Apr 21, 2010; Fun Shoe

Starsfan posted:

I think also a contributing factor to that many soldiers surrendering was that the local Japanese commander sold the British commanders a bill of goods on how they and the City (who i guess the British felt some duty to preserve if possible) would be treated after they surrendered which was promptly reneged on point by point after the British surrendered and they were all marched off to camps lol.

It was one of the really early warning signs that the Japanese army may not have been the most honest brokers in the world.

not to defend the e-honor of the ija, but yamashita specifically demanded unconditional surrender from the brits and got it, which makes your story a tad bit unlikely

# ? Feb 24, 2023 22:48

mila kunis: Jun 10, 2011

comedyblissoption posted:

npr this morning was talking about a supermajority of ukranians not accepting an end to the war unless all territory including crimea was returned

https://twitter.com/NOELreports/status/1628708680337072132

seems like a healthy atmosphere for opinion polling

# ? Feb 24, 2023 22:49

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# ? May 26, 2024 08:56

mila kunis: Jun 10, 2011

https://twitter.com/DefMon3/status/1629214694413148162

How many months have the russians been trying to take this one town for?

# ? Feb 24, 2023 23:00

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > [Ukraine] EU: Nice minister, shame if something were to happen...

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