[Ukraine] U.S. gives up on sending $100,000 guided artillery shells due to 6% hitrate

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > [Ukraine] U.S. gives up on sending $100,000 guided artillery shells due to 6% hitrate

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VoicesCanBe: Jul 1, 2023; "Cóż, wygląda na to, że zostaliśmy łaskawie oszczędzeni trudu decydowania o własnym losie. Jakże uprzejme z ich strony, że przearanżowali Europę bez kłopotu naszego zdania!"

Spergin Morlock posted:

the ukrainian state chose to align with russia 10 years ago and got a color revolution for their trouble

Not even. The Ukrainian state under Yanukovych chose neutrality - that wasn't good enough for the West.

# ? Apr 29, 2024 23:28

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# ? Jun 1, 2024 16:54

genericnick: Dec 26, 2012

Homeless Friend posted:

lmao lobster seeing nonsense post for the first time

# ? Apr 29, 2024 23:30

Tankbuster: Oct 1, 2021

Dokapon Findom posted:

Gorbachev should have put more effort into finding a way to manufacture denim jeans and import bananas. Then none of this would have ever happened

the denim jeans were being made behind the iron curtain. It just didn't have the mystique of levi's.

# ? Apr 29, 2024 23:44

Nix Panicus: Feb 25, 2007

CongoJack posted:

oh so Ukraine was just supposed to submit to ethnic cleansing?

Guy tearing down statues, disenfranchising minorities, suppressing native languages, and destroying books: "They were gonna ethnically cleanse us!"

# ? Apr 29, 2024 23:49

Zodium: Jun 19, 2004

Phigs posted:

I guess choice is too strong. "Option" maybe. Zelensky still had the option to turn away from the West even if he woulda gotten a but thou must.

maybe in the sense of having a choice between two paths that led to the same destination.

# ? Apr 29, 2024 23:50

Corky Romanovsky: Oct 1, 2006; Soiled Meat

Nix Panicus posted:

Guy tearing down statues, disenfranchising minorities, suppressing native languages, and destroying books: "They were gonna ethnically cleanse us!"

Some may justify it too by saying there is another state, perhaps even an ethno state, where that group exists.

# ? Apr 29, 2024 23:53

genericnick: Dec 26, 2012

Tankbuster posted:

the denim jeans were being made behind the iron curtain. It just didn't have the mystique of levi's.

Still not sure any of this mattered at the time or was just bullshit post facto rationalizing.

# ? Apr 29, 2024 23:54

Nix Panicus: Feb 25, 2007

Ardennes posted:

That was according to Al Jazeera.

They have been being pushed back all across that front. It really didn�t seem like there was a much of a fight either once the 115th collapsed and it has been a continued disaster even with reinforcements. Units seem to be being encircled or are forced to retreat. If the Ukrainians don�t fix what is going on they are going to be pushed out of the Donbas.

Anyway, if you have enough men, you cover the unit in rotation, if they are rotating with nothing to support them. It means there is a severe manpower problem.

For the conscripts, they are usually just replacing support staff that is then sent in. If they do get sent in they don�t last very long.

Eh, I remember the multiple times everyone was banging their fists about encirclement. I think its worthwhile to wait a week or two before pronouncing a general collapse, but its not great though. I still think this war hell grinds out through next year

# ? Apr 29, 2024 23:55

Dokapon Findom: Dec 5, 2022; But have you considered whether the child murdered by the driver of that truck was riding an oversized bike?!?! Children riding oversized bikes are the scourge of our roadways!!

Tankbuster posted:

the denim jeans were being made behind the iron curtain. It just didn't have the mystique of levi's.

I just bought what I think might be my last pair of 501s. They're so thin now compared to how they were just a few years ago, I am going to have to start investigating other brands with less cachet. Wish now that I hadn't thrown out my older, better made pairs :negative:

# ? Apr 29, 2024 23:57

Nix Panicus: Feb 25, 2007

Corky Romanovsky posted:

Some may justify it too by saying there is another state, perhaps even an ethno state, where that group exists.

Foreigners (who have lived here for generations) go home!

# ? Apr 29, 2024 23:57

Palladium: May 8, 2012; Very Good
✔️✔️✔️✔️

Dokapon Findom posted:

I just bought what I think might be my last pair of 501s. They're so thin now compared to how they were just a few years ago, I am going to have to start investigating other brands with less cachet. Wish now that I hadn't thrown out my older, better made pairs

levis are suck and overpriced versus uniqlos (and i don't even buy them new)

# ? Apr 29, 2024 23:58

Zodium: Jun 19, 2004

Nix Panicus posted:

Foreigners (who have lived here for generations) go home!

time to send the americans back to england

# ? Apr 29, 2024 23:59

Dokapon Findom: Dec 5, 2022; But have you considered whether the child murdered by the driver of that truck was riding an oversized bike?!?! Children riding oversized bikes are the scourge of our roadways!!

Palladium posted:

levis are suck and overpriced versus uniqlos (and i don't even buy them new)

Hmm... I already buy Uniqlo socks exclusively now. Maybe I'll them out

# ? Apr 30, 2024 00:10

GoLambo: Apr 11, 2006

I think letting a bunch of Actual Nazis shoot up your neighborhoods of ethnic russians and just not doing anything about it points to the kind of position the state of Ukraine was in. The Ukrainian people may have not had a say in the matter but the oligarch funded nazis got their way and the Ukrainian state picked sides with them so.

I think you can be rooting a little for them to lose.

# ? Apr 30, 2024 00:13

Nix Panicus: Feb 25, 2007

Zodium posted:

time to send the americans back to england

# ? Apr 30, 2024 00:13

dk2m: May 6, 2009

The moral dimensions don�t really look at history too which isn�t surprising. Ukraine basically never left shock therapy after 1991, obviously there�s the sociological perspective that led to the civil war in 2014, but the oligarchs in Ukraine were never put to heel as they were in Russia. the economy was a disaster; the civil war kicked off because of IMF negotiations, due to Ukraine effectively being broke, that would have severely hampered Ukraines working class

the east being industrial would not benefit from the spreadsheet economy as the western side would, especially with the emphasis on IT outsourcing and huge land leasing for agribusiness. it�s not surprising that the liberals in western Ukraine found a common friend with the nationalists that were driven by OUN idealogy

it didn�t take a whole lot of effort from the west to even foster this; as even Russians will tell you, the NGOs don�t �create� movements as much as simply fund existing tensions. Russian influence is much less effective at this because their funding is either blatant to the point of it being artificial, or completely ineffective to compete with the west (even simple things like setting up exchange programs to study in elite universities don�t happen)

# ? Apr 30, 2024 00:16

Officer Sandvich: Feb 14, 2010

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/29/debris-from-north-korean-missile-found-in-kharkiv-say-un-sanctions-monitors

Debris from North Korean missile found in Kharkiv, say UN sanctions monitors

quote:

The debris from a missile that landed in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on 2 January was from a North Korean Hwasong-11 series ballistic missile, UN sanctions monitors told a security council committee in a report seen by Reuters.

In the 32-page report, the UN sanctions monitors concluded that “debris recovered from a missile that landed in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on 2 January 2024 derives from a DPRK Hwasong-11 series missile” and is in violation of the arms embargo on North Korea.

[....]

Three sanctions monitors travelled to Ukraine earlier this month to inspect the debris and found no evidence that the missile was made by Russia. They “could not independently identify from where the missile was launched, nor by whom”.

“Information on the trajectory provided by Ukrainian authorities indicates it was launched within the territory of the Russian Federation,” they wrote in a 25 April report to the security council’s North Korea sanctions committee.

“Such a location, if the missile was under control of Russian forces, would probably indicate procurement by nationals of the Russian Federation,” they said, adding that this would be a violation of the arms embargo imposed on North Korea in 2006.

[....]

At a UN security council meeting in February, the US accused Russia of launching DPRK-supplied ballistic missiles against Ukraine on at least nine occasions.

The UN monitors said the Hwasong-11 series ballistic missiles were first publicly tested by Pyongyang in 2019.

Russia last month vetoed the annual renewal of the UN sanctions monitors – known as a panel of experts – that have for 15 years monitored enforcement of UN sanctions on North Korea over its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes. The mandate for the current panel of experts will expire on Tuesday.

Within days of the 2 January attack, the Kharkiv region prosecutor’s office showcased fragments of the missile to the media, saying it was different from Russian models and “this may be a missile which was supplied by North Korea”.

# ? Apr 30, 2024 00:26

Dokapon Findom: Dec 5, 2022; But have you considered whether the child murdered by the driver of that truck was riding an oversized bike?!?! Children riding oversized bikes are the scourge of our roadways!!

Time for everyone in this war to chill out

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

# ? Apr 30, 2024 00:27

mawarannahr: May 21, 2019

Dokapon Findom posted:

Time for everyone in this war to chill out

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

based

# ? Apr 30, 2024 00:28

Palladium: May 8, 2012; Very Good
✔️✔️✔️✔️

Officer Sandvich posted:

Debris from North Korean missile found in Kharkiv, say UN sanctions monitors

have they called the missile manager

# ? Apr 30, 2024 00:36

Officer Sandvich: Feb 14, 2010

https://civil.ge/archives/602348

Bidzina Ivanishvili Backs Anti-Western Policies, Threatens Repressions

quote:

Key points of Ivanishvili’s speech:

Georgia should be governed by people who are elected by Georgians. From 2004-2012, we were governed by a foreign-appointed revolutionary committee. They came to power as a result of an NGO-led revolution.

The bloody regime that was established showed us the price of this mistake. Some think the reason was Mikheil Saakashvili’s sadism and lack of patriotism. In fact, all of this was ordered by their patrons from abroad. Those very politicians who endorsed those policies now portray Saakashvili and his cronies as innocent. The recent resolution of the European Parliament is one example.

When we ended UNM’s bloody regime, I thought my mission was done. But it was not enough: We still have to fight for our independence and sovereignty. I personally continue that struggle to fully restore our nation’s sovereignty.

The important decisions in this world are taken by the global party of war. It is this global force that first forced the confrontation of Georgia with Russia and then put Ukraine in even worse peril. NGOs and radical opposition are acting on their behalf. The laws that we are proposing are there to expose those dark linkages.

NGOs are pseudo-elite nurtured by a foreign country and has several key characteristics. They have no homeland; they do not love their country or their people because they do not really consider them to be their own. On the contrary, such people are embarrassed by their country and its people.

Some ask why we took back the law on foreign agents last year. This was because a large proportion of society was misled, and we also had to ensure stability. But now, people are no longer fooled and support our Georgian law on transparency. We are also ready to surmount the difficulties without sacrificing stability.

Some ask why we did not wait for a while with NGO and LGBT law, perhaps after the elections – but who would have left us in peace if we did not pass this law? NGOs had already tried to launch the revolution twice in the past years; now they were calling for vetting in courts and changes in election law; these were all intentions of the global party of war to engineer a revolution.

By tabling the laws now, we are forcing them to expend the energy which they were planning to use during the elections. Now, they are spending it uselessly in the streets. The “agentura” will be weakened, it will be exhausted. So the timing for LGBT and NGO laws was ideal. We are not going to lose anything by passing these laws, but deserve the anger from the global party of war, which we are inconveniencing anyway.

I know many of our supporters were dissatisfied that we did not punish the United National Movement enough. Even though many of their leaders spent time in prison and their leader [Saakashvili] is still in prison, it is true that we did not pass the UNM in a tribunal as such, did not condemn it as a treasonous, criminal entity that it is. Why did not we do it? Because we were under tremendous pressure. In fact, UNM was appointed the opposition [in 2012] just like they were appointed as government [in 2003] by the global party of war.

The Georgian people should decide the country’s fate. After the [victory in] elections, we will issue a strict political and legal condemnation to the collective UNM [meaning NGOs and political opponents]; it will get the due punishment it deserves. They will pay for all the crimes against the Georgian people.

I promise that having overcome these difficulties, with sovereignty and dignity intact, in 2030, Georgia will join the EU.

Our dream is unified, independent, sovereign, and strengthened Georgia, the Dream we will make true together.

# ? Apr 30, 2024 00:54

ikanreed: Sep 25, 2009; I honestly I have no idea who cannibal[SIC] is and I do not know why I should know.

syq dude, just syq!

Dokapon Findom posted:

I just bought what I think might be my last pair of 501s. They're so thin now compared to how they were just a few years ago, I am going to have to start investigating other brands with less cachet. Wish now that I hadn't thrown out my older, better made pairs

Would you blame that on material conditions? :downsrim:

# ? Apr 30, 2024 00:58

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

Officer Sandvich posted:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/29/debris-from-north-korean-missile-found-in-kharkiv-say-un-sanctions-monitors

Debris from North Korean missile found in Kharkiv, say UN sanctions monitors

Who gives a gently caress about that embargo? What are even the repercussions for Russia breaking it? More sanctions? Lmao

# ? Apr 30, 2024 01:00

supersnowman: Oct 3, 2012

Spergin Morlock posted:

the ukrainian state chose to align with russia 10 years ago and got a color revolution for their trouble

The Ukrainians were voting for Russian aligned presidents and ten the western NGOs pushed enough BS to elect a pro-west government. That government sucked so drat hard the Russia aligned guy got voted back in and then got color-revolutionized.

# ? Apr 30, 2024 01:27

supersnowman: Oct 3, 2012

Officer Sandvich posted:

https://civil.ge/archives/602348

Bidzina Ivanishvili Backs Anti-Western Policies, Threatens Repressions

The west is so drat angry against a country who still want to join them through the EU.

# ? Apr 30, 2024 01:28

Freezer: Apr 20, 2001; The Earth is the cradle of the mind, but one cannot stay in the cradle forever.

Regarde Aduck posted:

Who gives a gently caress about that embargo? What are even the repercussions for Russia breaking it? More sanctions? Lmao

Another success for the "paint myself into a corner" brand of aggressive foreign policy.

# ? Apr 30, 2024 01:30

Ardennes: May 12, 2002

Nix Panicus posted:

Eh, I remember the multiple times everyone was banging their fists about encirclement. I think its worthwhile to wait a week or two before pronouncing a general collapse, but its not great though. I still think this war hell grinds out through next year

The encirclements are small scale, and it isn't a general collapse, but at the same time the Ukrainians haven't seemingly been able to catch a break since the fall of Avdiivka and the farther the frontline spreads out that is simply a longer line they have to defend with a shrinking pool of available forces.

It is a slow burn still, but not only is this just with the forces the Russians have in the field but they clearly have large amounts of troops sitting around.

Honestly, whether the war grinds on for another year or not really seems up to the Russians and how they play it. They are controlling the tempo. They could drag it out or find a more decisive conclusion but it seems really it is about how they are going to play it.

------------

It is good question what the long-term plan is for Georgia regarding the EU because it seems like the current party (Georgian Dream) is holding in the pools, while there is little way for the US not to be vindictive (and therefore the EU) against them by passing a law about NGOs. While Russia would be find with joining the Eurasian Union, they don't seem close to be interested.

Ardennes has issued a correction as of 01:35 on Apr 30, 2024

# ? Apr 30, 2024 01:30

Dokapon Findom: Dec 5, 2022; But have you considered whether the child murdered by the driver of that truck was riding an oversized bike?!?! Children riding oversized bikes are the scourge of our roadways!!

supersnowman posted:

The Ukrainians were voting for Russian aligned presidents and ten the western NGOs pushed enough BS to elect a pro-west government. That government sucked so drat hard the Russia aligned guy got voted back in and then got color-revolutionized.

The Orange Revolution really was a kind of speed run of watching promised dreams not be fulfilled

# ? Apr 30, 2024 01:37

Nix Panicus: Feb 25, 2007

dk2m posted:

The moral dimensions don�t really look at history too which isn�t surprising. Ukraine basically never left shock therapy after 1991, obviously there�s the sociological perspective that led to the civil war in 2014, but the oligarchs in Ukraine were never put to heel as they were in Russia. the economy was a disaster; the civil war kicked off because of IMF negotiations, due to Ukraine effectively being broke, that would have severely hampered Ukraines working class

the east being industrial would not benefit from the spreadsheet economy as the western side would, especially with the emphasis on IT outsourcing and huge land leasing for agribusiness. it�s not surprising that the liberals in western Ukraine found a common friend with the nationalists that were driven by OUN idealogy

it didn�t take a whole lot of effort from the west to even foster this; as even Russians will tell you, the NGOs don�t �create� movements as much as simply fund existing tensions. Russian influence is much less effective at this because their funding is either blatant to the point of it being artificial, or completely ineffective to compete with the west (even simple things like setting up exchange programs to study in elite universities don�t happen)

But have you stopped to consider thats all fake culture war bullshit stoked by the media for votes and there were no significant divides between the east and west in Ukraine that could lead to a civil war?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exJ024Zdzdk

# ? Apr 30, 2024 01:40

Ardennes: May 12, 2002

Yeah that was the irony, there was already a color revolution beforehand, it just completely backfired due to the economic policies at place (even before the 2008 crash), the Ukrainian public wanted legitimately another option and a "override" was put into place.

Btw, at late as a poll from January 24 to February 1st 2014, Yanukovych was still comfortably leading in the polls. The entire country hadn't "turned against him" but the opposition decided to take to the streets rather than the ballot box. In 2014, there wasn't a general political or social split in Ukraine despite the hardcore nationalists in Lvov.

The tragedy of Ukraine was about the power and influence of the United States and its ability to brute force the destruction of a country for its own goals.

Ardennes has issued a correction as of 01:49 on Apr 30, 2024

# ? Apr 30, 2024 01:46

Nix Panicus: Feb 25, 2007

Sometimes you just have to overthrow a free and fair election in order to save democracy

# ? Apr 30, 2024 01:51

OhFunny: Jun 26, 2013; EXTREMELY PISSED AT THE DNC

Perhaps it's too early to say, but it looks like it will be a northwest push aimed at cutting the highway between Kostiantynivka and Pokrovsk.

# ? Apr 30, 2024 01:56

Ardennes: May 12, 2002

OhFunny posted:

Perhaps it's too early to say, but it looks like it will be a northwest push aimed at cutting the highway between Kostiantynivka and Pokrovsk.

The farther the Russians push outward the more options come into play pretty much in every direction, but arguably they could simply avoid some of the worst of the fighting in the north just by going around it and more or less the same in the south.

# ? Apr 30, 2024 02:01

wynott dunn: Aug 9, 2006; What is to be done?

Who or what can challenge, and stand a chance at beating, the corporate juggernauts dominating the world?

democracy is about saving the people from themselves because they still have some growing up to do. they don�t know that no bread and no circuses is what free and transparent society looks like and can�t be trusted to make the mature decisions

# ? Apr 30, 2024 02:10

MinutePirateBug: Mar 4, 2013

Nix Panicus posted:

But have you stopped to consider thats all fake culture war bullshit stoked by the media for votes and there were no significant divides between the east and west in Ukraine that could lead to a civil war?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exJ024Zdzdk

God selling the Union building fire as an accident is vile, and just loving completely underselling how loving greasy and vile the US has been in this whole thing is loving awful. loving arch-liberal from hell.

MinutePirateBug has issued a correction as of 02:30 on Apr 30, 2024

# ? Apr 30, 2024 02:23

Nix Panicus: Feb 25, 2007

Sometimes buildings just catch fire and burn and its nobody's fault except for Russia

# ? Apr 30, 2024 02:38

dk2m: May 6, 2009

It's pretty interesting to see how one of the original Donbass seperatists saw Yanukovych. Here's an excerpt from Pavel Gubarev's "Torch of New Russia" - there's a very, very unkind portrait of Yanukovych that I haven't encountered until this memoir

quote:

Corporate raiding and the redistribution of wealth has been the norm since independence, but it became a bacchanalia of expropriation under Yanukovich. His crime family tore a great deal down. In the Donbass there was a struggle for control of the most profitable coal fields as well as the coal preparations plants. Yanukovich�s clan seized property in western Ukraine too. They cut down entire beech and oak forests owned by others for export to Europe. In Europe, you can get three thousand euros for a cubic meter of such woods. They even seized ports, such as Ilichyovsk near Odessa.

Today in the Donetsk People�s Republic one can see a bandit who attached himself to the people�s revolution driving a crossover vehicle with a sticker To Lvov!, referring to a future military campaign. But the Yanukovich clan already made its way to Lvov in 2011 to 2012, robbing everyone who somehow managed to rise during the years of �independence�. Yanukovich�s looting was different from that of the 1990s. Instead of car bombings and assassinations, people were destroyed by police investigations and bureaucratic harassment. In essence it was the same though, the blackest redistribution of property. Yanukovich didn�t care at all about the common man and his regime openly enriched themselves at the public expense. They indulged in the most hypocritical propaganda, swearing eternal allegiance to the heroes of the Second World War, ranting about building a strong Ukraine, and standing up for traditional values. It was typical for the post-Soviet mafia republics that we know so well.

The corruption led to a general outrage in December 2013. Or rather, the Western intelligence services created the outrage, but the oligarchs took advantage of it. It was impossible for them to not take advantage of it. The Yanukovich clan hadn�t engaged in politics at all. It only focused on self-enrichment. Its conception of national interest was plundering the population. Yanukovich�s son controlled the entire sand export market through the prosecutor�s office. Yanukovich�s clan used to loot entire business centers and luxury apartments in city centers. A while back a friend of mine, a businessman in the coal industry, told me:

�Pasha, you must understand that it is pointless to compete with them. They�ll steal billions and start building on a grand scale. You can scrape together some money and try to build with ten million, but they�ll take the land from you. Even if you own the land, they can force you to sell it. If you are stubborn, then they�ll send the prosecutor or tax authorities after you. They will not leave you alone.�

Mafias permeated all parts of Ukraine. At the top the oligarchs seized large properties and at the bottom low-ranking mafiosos controlled contracting. Honest businessmen could not get into certain markets. If you tried to get a contract with Ahmetov�s Metinvest , then you�d be confronted that evening at your home by thugs. After that, everyone stopped competing for contracts since health is more valuable than money. Economic competition, which had never been strong, became a thing of the past under Yanukovich. The state ideology was Sicilianism � rule by mafiosos. What else could it be called? It is because of this that nothing new could be developed. All that could be done was to exploit the industries built under the Soviet Union

....

Yanukovich was the creature of primitive gangsters and had been ever since his governorship of Donetsk. It is no wonder that such a lazy and unintelligent man had caused a crisis and lost power. He was short sighted, had a limited mind, and was incapable of thinking on a grand scale. His sole drives were greed and envy. A randomly picked �regionalist� could have done a better job at running Ukraine than Yanukovich. He was the fruit of a systematic problem where power was in the hands of looters. Power was merely for redirecting budget flows to their liking and seizing property. Was it really surprising that his clan was losing ground to even poor Galicia? It later turned out that not only was his clan squashing the Russian organizations of the southeast, but also nurturing neo-Banderist forces. They funded Tyagibokov�s nationalist Freedom organization, allowing it to build training camps and arming militants.

Yanukovich�s clan (he, his son, Arbuzov, Kurchenko, etc) were not the only ones involved in nurturing the neo-Banderists. The Ahmetov-Kolesnikov clan and other old-school gangsters also supported them. The oligarchs were so corrupt that their own companies were riven with theft. Contracts with Ahmetov�s companies were often more corrupt than state contracts. The rivalries of political parties and power structures allowed for at least some competitive state contracts. By contrast, the dominance of the clans in the Donbass prevented similar competition from developing. Decay reigned uncontested under the clans there. I saw it myself.

Those practices were brought to the national government after Yanukovich became president. Thus it should not be a surprise that the native Donetsk criminals never became the dominant force within Ukraine. They could not attract intelligent minds or righteous men. They only drew support from the billionaires who made their fortunes in the Great Grab . The poor regions of the �Wild West� � Lvov, Ternopol, and Ivano-Frankovsk � were able to attract the intelligent and the righteous, and through them capture the minds of most of the country. There was no vision of a reunified Russia that could be expected from Ahmetov or Yanukovich. They couldn�t even articulate a political idea for the Donbass, much less the southeast or New Russia.

The question of national ideology had been raised in Ukraine prior to 1991. There was only one candidate for it � Ukrainian integral nationalism. It was a purely Galician phenomenon, a product of the peasant agrarian system in some parts of western Ukraine. The ideology had several points. The first was that Ukrainians are a great European nation with a thousand-year history of struggle for independence from Moscow�s Asiatic yoke. The second is that Ukrainians are united with Europe by their European culture and a shared hatred against the Muscovites, Asiatics, and Soviet nostalgics. The third was that the struggle against the Muscovites for reunification with Europe is unceasing and has entered a stage of armed struggle. The fourth is that Ukrainians must win the struggle to reunite with Europe to live happily forever after in European civilization.

There was no other ideology in post-Soviet Ukraine. When outside forces staged the �EuroMaydan� against the Donetsk criminals who had been in power, the Dnepropetrovsk oligarchic clan (Poroshenko, Kolomoysky, and others) had no alternative ideology than that Galician nationalism to justify their move for power. The elites of the Donbass and New Russia as a whole could not and did not seek to create a political ideology. The interests of the Ukrainian oligarchy (from Bogdan Hmelnitsky to Petro Poroshenko) coincide with the interests of the independentists and �clear-sighted� nationalists in their protection of Western capitalists and from Russian competition. The oligarchs have always been primarily concerned with closing the path into their class through wealth inequality, the suppression of economic opportunity, and the granting of elite privileges. Examples of the coincidence of interests are the nationalist battalions, which have evolved into mercenary armies used like chained-dogs by the oligarchs.

That is why the Galicians were the actual ideological and political elite (in the sense of bearing the national ideology) of Ukraine after 1991, regardless of who held the offices of president and prime minister. Politicians ruled the people, but the Galicians ruled their souls. The Yanukovich clan didn�t understand that. Their psychology was primitive. They believed that since they controlled the courts, the budgets, and political offices that they truly dominated Ukraine. They saw ideas as worthless, something that could be faked at the snap of a finger. They were never a political elite. The real elite, full of the passion and intelligence that the Party of Regions lacked, animated Maydan. The gangster government had strangled political life in the Donbass, and the Party of Regions had no substance behind it.

When the thunder of the lightning strike at Maydan reached the Donbass, there were no intelligent and decisive leaders capable of articulating anything intelligible. The victory of armed neo-Banderists at Maydan was seen like an alien invasion even though multiple color revolutions had been launched in the Arab world since 2011. Yanukovich had even been warned of color revolutions, but was too short-sighted to understand their threat. Woe to the country whose rulers are short-sighted and indecisive.

In the Donbass, we watched all that happened at Maydan with a powerless rage. I remembered the first �separatist� congress in Severodonetsk in 2005, and attended two following congresses in 2010 and on 22 February 2014 (the latter in Kharkov). Our enemies had told us in 2004 that they were our masters, that they ruled us, and that we had to feed them. Later, in 2005, Prime Minister Timoshenko called for the Donbass to be fenced off with barbed wire. The young pro-Russia political class understood that we were in a deadly struggle with the neo-Banderists. Only the Yanukovich clan and its cronies failed to understand that.

In 2005 we had a number of Ukrainian nationalists, mostly from the west, study history at Donetsk University. A decade before the coup, we already arguing and brawling. Eventually, we both realized that war couldn�t be avoided. We were right.

Bold emphasis mine. Sorry for the long wall of text, but this is a really fascinating little book.

# ? Apr 30, 2024 02:39

MinutePirateBug: Mar 4, 2013

Nix Panicus posted:

Sometimes buildings just catch fire and burn and its nobody's fault except for Russia

When he was like Oh loving Clinton was such a great consensus builder, so poor Clinton let the loving French prevent us from stopping the Rwandan genocide I wanted to just loving ARGH! loving gently caress this loving gently caress fucker gently caress.

# ? Apr 30, 2024 02:46

Freezer: Apr 20, 2001; The Earth is the cradle of the mind, but one cannot stay in the cradle forever.

Ardennes posted:

The encirclements are small scale, and it isn't a general collapse, but at the same time the Ukrainians haven't seemingly been able to catch a break since the fall of Avdiivka and the farther the frontline spreads out that is simply a longer line they have to defend with a shrinking pool of available forces.

It is a slow burn still, but not only is this just with the forces the Russians have in the field but they clearly have reinforcements.

Honestly, whether the war grinds on for another year or not really seems up to the Russians and how they play it. They are controlling the tempo.

It would seem like the Russians have been content with cauldroning AFU groupings and then just shelling them on the way out as opposed to actual encirclement. Can't blame them after the mess that was Azovstal.

# ? Apr 30, 2024 02:56

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# ? Jun 1, 2024 16:54

Some Guy TT: Aug 30, 2011

Tankbuster posted:

https://twitter.com/OCanonist/status/1783799835021410759

Explain this.

thank u reader context im happy to learn that putin has not actually declared war on furries

# ? Apr 30, 2024 03:07

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > [Ukraine] U.S. gives up on sending $100,000 guided artillery shells due to 6% hitrate

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