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Count Roland posted:(Russia has never controlled Turkey) I think he's referring to Russia's historical obsession with retaking and re-christian orthodoxing Constantinople. Edit - goddamit
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Sep 4, 2014 18:10
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| # ¿ May 22, 2024 09:21 |
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This is a great candid interview with a Russian guy that's getting paid to fight in Ukraine on the side of the separatists. Alas, it's in Russian, and long, but I'll translate the parts that were interesting to me. http://www.novayagazeta.ru/society/65096.html Fighters are recruited in different ways. If your specialty back in the day was spetznaz or intelligence or something equally in demand, FSB would come to your house and try to recruit you in person. Vet organizations are also used to recruit through announcements and sign up lists. Most of the recruiting is done through Cossack organizations tho. Anybody that applies first has an interview with FSB, but it is pretty much a formality. A guy with mental retardation applied, and was accepted. Same with seniors, and even the homeless. Nobody under 25 is taken, on account of their close ties to their family, supposedly. Compensation varies, his battalion pays around 60K rubles per month plus extra for getting wounded/killed, per fighter, more for officers. Everybody gets shipped off to near Rostov, checked by FSB again, they hand in all their documents and identification, then get shipped off to a training camp on a small island near Rostov. There are no guns on the island, so the training is physical fitness, maps, first aid, mines, etc. The training depends on the commander. If he's poo poo, the training is poo poo. Some people leave at this stage after realizing how hosed up the training is and the implications of what that means down the line. After this they are sent to the final training camp. This is where they get the weapons. If the battalion is being assigned as a motorized infantry battalion, fighters are simply given their vehicles. "You three are now tankers, and you three are now artillery." This training period only lasts several days, and after those several days are up its time to ship out to the front lines. Motorized columns were being sent into Ukraine every day. They are not Russian army vehicles. They are vehicles left in Crimean army bases, shipped to the Rostov region and funneled back into Ukraine. The amount of casualties is staggering. Not even in the Chechen wars were this many casualties. Up to 50% of battalions end up dead/wounded or desert. This is a direct result of lack of training for recruited fighters. In the end he gives his reasons for joining up: 1. Kiev must pay for the blood they spilled 2. Some of the best times of his life were his war-time days I sincerely hope this man died in agony. Present fucked around with this message at 20:28 on Sep 4, 2014 |
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Sep 4, 2014 20:18
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Dessel posted:^ I'm just translating. "Те, кто едет, по большей части — люди абсолютно необученные." Those that go, are for the main part completely untrained.
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Sep 4, 2014 20:35
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Nintendo Kid posted:He probably means rate of casualties among the fighters. Also, casualty does not mean dead it's injured and dead. There were surely more than 5000 and 7000 soldiers injured during the chechen wars. Yeah this is it. The guy in the interview was referring to the losses on the separatists' side of the conflict. He gives two examples. A group of mercenaries counting 300 people enters Ukraine. In the first week 200 of that 300 are killed or wounded as a result of Ukrainian artillery fire. The second example is a group of 82 people entering Ukraine, and in the first few days there are 19 dead, 30 wounded. In other news the Ukrainian rep to the UN reports Russia giving out Russian passports to people in Donetsk/Lugansk.
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Sep 5, 2014 00:04
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Cheatum the Evil Midget posted:Here's a long and interesting article, though probably too pro-russian for most people's taste: Whenever I keep seeing articles on how the separatists and pro-Russia supporters are people too and are fighting for their blah blah blah, I just remember that they've been watching Putin's TV channels and literally believe that they are about to be invaded by Kiev's forces, who will kill all the men and children and rape the women. This is literally what they believe they are defending their homes from. It's hard for me to identify with someone like that.
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Sep 5, 2014 03:26
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OddObserver posted:Note that the reason volunteers generally don't have heavy weapons is pretty banal, actually: most of them are legally interior ministry troops, Yeah, the army not releasing heavy weapons to volunteer battalions was a hot topic for a while. Thankfully they're getting their rear end in gear and making changes. There was a news release about one battalion getting tanks and Grads, etc, recently, I want to say Donbass but not 100%. And yeah there's been a lot of mud slinging in the Ukrainian media about the speed with which heavy weapons are making their way from stockpiles to the front lines. Bureaucracy/sabotage is the popular opinion of why this is happening. Hopefully they'll sort it out sooner than later.
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Sep 5, 2014 03:33
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eXXon posted:I don't know if you actually read the article but it does not suggest that at all: Dude, right in the second paragraph: quote:When the Maidan protests started in Kiev late last year, Mishin followed them with increasing anxiety. He watched as young men in masks and the insignia of old Ukrainian fascist movements attacked riot police – some of them from the Donetsk area – with Molotov cocktails. He saw governors in the western provinces pulled out of their offices and roughed up by furious crowds. It seemed that the country was descending into chaos. When he heard a rumour that some of the young men from Maidan were headed for Donetsk, he believed it.
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Sep 5, 2014 03:43
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I'm not going to split hairs. Bottom line is many people from the Donetsk/Lugansk region are literally afraid of getting murdered/raped/eaten by Kiev and by Ukrainian army and by Ukrainians from the western part of the country. And I get that it's not their fault, but when they pick up guns and start abducting people for having a Ukrainian flag decal on their lovely Soviet era car, well, then it gets me. There's a cool article I read recently about how Russia's nuclear arsenal is actually useless now. The main thust of the article is that the only facility that was used to produce the radiative material for the warheads was dismantled years ago thanks to some treaty, and the existing warheads finally turned inert. I can't seem to find it anywhere.
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Sep 5, 2014 04:15
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https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.lvmax.redfire.ru
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Sep 12, 2014 06:12
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Cheatum the Evil Midget posted:Yes yes, the fact Russia instigated this removes any responsibility for the Ukrainians to behave in a moral fashion and not Grad civilian areas Ukrainian army has stated from the very beginning that they are not using artillery on civilian areas. Multiple Ukrainian soldiers/officers that are participating in the ATO have stated the same thing in interviews. There are however a lot of reports of separatists blowing up infrastructure and buildings, quickly followed by Russian news crews filming the destruction on site and blaming the damage on the Ukrainian homonazi army tho. In terms of conclusive proof there's least one video of separatists randomly lobbing mortars into shahtersk's residential area from the city's soccer field. I'm on my phone otherwise I'd post the link to the page that has the clip and the Google maps satelite view of where those assholes were firing.
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Sep 12, 2014 07:23
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The way mightypeon operates is he posts something, then a bunch of people call him out on his bullshit, then he disappears until its time to troll again. Also doesn't he live in Germany? A Russian that left Russia to live in the West while worshipping Russia and making GBS threads on NATO is some grade A irony.
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Sep 12, 2014 20:16
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Berke Negri posted:Mightypeon's recent string of "Russia as sore loser" explanation of events makes a lot more sense than any NATO chat. In Maidan the West didn't just "win", it won unfairly. Russia had the legwork put in, Russia had the money on the table, Russia had the guy in office, Russia by all rights HAD won in the pre-Berkut crackdown talks with EU pulling out. Then March comes around and when Put in is supposed to be having his moment with Sochi, the West and it's dirty tricks, swoops in last second as Maidan overthrows Yanuk. It's bulls hit because the West just shows up thirty seconds before the buzzer and scores the winning poo poo while Russia had to pull a lot of strings and get things done "the right way". Its not so much his explanation as it is the fact he obviously approves of the whole thing like some kind of sociopath. Hey MP, buddy, how do you feel about Hitler murdering all those people in WW2? Germany was mistreated by the west and had the moral high ground to murder/gas/conquer all those people, right?
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Sep 12, 2014 23:32
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Majorian posted:Could we please not do this? It doesn't lend anything constructive to the discussion, and it's also a really lovely thing to say about somebody. Let me break it down for you. All of my relatives except for my parents live in Ukraine. Some or all of them might die once Putin gives the order. And this piece of poo poo is sitting in his computer chair at home watching all this and thinking "good for you Russia. You go girl." So can I maybe say some really lovely things about a person that sincerely supports my grandma becoming a civilian casualty, pretty please? FU MP In other news, Ukrainian soldiers somehow keep dying to Russian guns even after the ceasefire came into effect! What will those crazy Russians think of next. Present fucked around with this message at 01:11 on Sep 13, 2014 |
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Sep 13, 2014 00:15
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Majorian posted:I'm still expecting that the Ukrainians are just too drat tired of this craziness and instability for there to be a Maidan 2.0 in the near future, but then again, I don't know the Ukrainian people very well. Anybody got a read on how keen they are for a new scuffle? Well they dumpstered that MP and brought back the lit up tire barricade to "help" the Rada pass that new law just now so I'd say there's plenty of fighting spirit left.
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Sep 16, 2014 21:16
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Majorian posted:Eh, but there's a difference between that and marching en masse against the sitting government as a whole, calling for its replacement. I don't think there's a difference at all. If people are passionate to come out to kick the rear end of a lovely MP right on the front steps of the Rada, and are passionate enough to send a clear message to the Rada by lighting a bunch of tires on fire while the lustration law is being passed inside, then it shows that people really do care. Like in this video where the body of a soldier killed in the ATO is brought back to his village and there are HUNDREDS of people watching him come back, some of them actually on their knees. It really looks like Ukrainians really care about what is happening in their country. http://censor.net.ua/video_news/302726/ukraina_na_kolenyah_vstrechaet_geroev_pavshih_v_borbe_za_nezavisimost_video Text on the page is in Russian tho.
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Sep 16, 2014 23:00
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Majorian posted:There's a difference in degrees though. I mean, you can see that, right? I'm not saying the degree of motivation that would lead to Poroshenko's downfall definitively isn't there, but I'd be surprised if it were. I don't think a crowd caring enough to rough up an MP translates directly into the population of Kiev pouring out into the streets and shutting the city down until Poroshenko resigns. I think were talking about slightly different things. Theres passion for the future of the country, and a lot of it. People definitely care. Near as I can tell from watching/reading Ukrainian news, a lot of people aren't too happy with the year's delay. But not to the extreme level that you're talking about. Poroshenkos govmt still has the trust of the people. I think a lot of it is tourchinov/yatsenuk. Those two dudes got the country through some tough times mang. In other news, the updated number of Ukrainian soldiers that died from enemy fire since the ceasefire went into effect: 16
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Sep 17, 2014 03:35
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TeodorMorozov posted:Back to Makarevich. Lol Putin is making GBS threads in your mouth but you think you're actually eating tasty chocolate ice cream.
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Sep 18, 2014 07:24
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So Russian news reports that there are a bunch of planned government meetings/events on the security of Russian internet coming up, one of which will be attended by Putin himself. The focus will be on the sovereignty of the Russian segment of the world wide web, and will include a protocol for disconnecting the Russian segment from the rest of the world in case of war or whatever. Putin's going all in you guys.
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Sep 19, 2014 16:52
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As far as I'm concerned, everyone in here that says that NATO intervention would only make things worse is playing right into Putin's hands. He's not some kind insane despot, he's a shrewd and calculating leader. He does poo poo, looks at the results, and bases his future decisions on that. He went and invaded Georgia and took some of their land, and the western world didn't do poo poo. Then he did the same thing in Crimea, and the world responded about with indignant noises. And now he's doing the same thing in south-eastern Ukraine while the West finally gets off its rear end and starts doing some limp-wrist sanctions poo poo. He's playing a game of chicken with the rest of the world and winning. If there were NATO troops with blue helmets on the ground in eastern Ukraine right now, the Russian army would be legging it back across the border so fast. All of you supporting the course of restraint are part of the problem.
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Sep 21, 2014 18:07
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V. Illych L. posted:^^There is absolutely no indication that Putin wouldn't simply up the stakes again if NATO tried anything like that. loving Yeltsin was willing to directly confront NATO troops in the Serbian conflict, and Putin is much less agreeable than Yeltsin was. There it is. Putin is laughing all the way to the bank while everyone watches Ukraine get hosed in the rear end.
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Sep 21, 2014 18:28
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Russia's like a schoolyard sociopath bully that's beating the poo poo out of little kid Ukraine. All the kids and teachers watch it happen every day at recess, but nobody's stepping in because they're afraid that if they do, Russia will bring his dad's gun to school the very next day and go nuts. Someone posted this poem already but gently caress, it's almost 100 years later and it's so relevant again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pw94_r3LZas
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Sep 22, 2014 17:58
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Majorian posted:The problem is, there are no teachers in this analogy, the beating is taking place across the schoolyard, and the bully has a gun pointed at the little kid and you. You have a gun pointed at them too, though, so that's nice at least. Yes, please nitpick the analogy instead of focusing on the giant similarities to prove me wrong.
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Sep 22, 2014 19:33
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Majorian posted:That's not nitpicking. You're making it seem like it's as simple as you marching over to the other side of the playground and kicking the bully's rear end. Unfortunately, it's not - trying to do that risks serious harm to the bullied kid and yourself. The same applies to the Ukraine crisis. So in both cases, if you want to get the bully to stop whaling on the kid, you're going to have to find another way to do it than direct physical confrontation. CoolCab posted:Here is an analogy: everyone is waist deep in gasoline. Russia is behaving in a way we don't like, but the only weapon we have is a book of matches. I'd love to watch you guys look into the eyes of a Ukrainian woman who has her son on the front lines right now and explain it to her. Yes mam, it's not Ukraine's fault, yes the Bucharest Memorandum is not worth the paper it's printed on, yes Putin's the aggressor, yes he's killing people, yes he's lying about it after brainwashing everyone, no we're not going to do much about it because of the gas and because he may be crazy enough to start launching nukes, possibly, sorry. Hope your son doesn't die!
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Sep 22, 2014 19:51
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CoolCab posted:In contrast, I would love to watch you guys look into the eyes of every human being and explain that sunlight and bread were nice and all, but there's something to be said for retaining our international commitments. Like the Bucharest Memorandum?
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Sep 22, 2014 20:00
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Majorian posted:So what, exactly, do you propose we do? Do you think that same Ukrainian mother would feel positively about NATO sending in the troops? Are you somehow under the impression that NATO is widely viewed as a potential savior in Ukraine? In order: 1. As a private person, stop voicing your terrible beliefs. The only reason Putin gets away with what he's doing is because people with your beliefs are the majority. And he knows that very well. 2. Absolutely. When Putin occupied Crimea the people took to the streets calling for NATO and UN to send troops/weapons. Then reality hit that the world wasn't getting involved beyond issuing sternly worded statements. 3. See 2. My sources are the Ukrainian media and my relatives that live in Ukraine. ^^ Fair enough about the memorandum tho. If there's anything this conflict has shown it's that you can only rely on yourself. That's the most tragic thing about it all. NATO/the West decided not to get involved so as not to piss off Russia, but what's going to happen now is Ukraine is going to militarize to the nines and likely strive to become nuclear again in order to protect itself. So instead of a show of force that would have shut down Putin for good, we're going to get another India/Pakistan situation but in Europe this time, woooo!
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Sep 22, 2014 22:02
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I'm not expecting anything from anybody anymore, and I don't think Ukraine is either. They learned their lesson the hard way. It's just tragic about how it all played out. It would be pretty funny tho if in 20 years Ukraine has nukes again and politicians all over the world are sweating about what that means. There are definitely conditions in the Non-Proliferation Treaty that permit a country to leave. Like what's going on in Ukraine right now! Obviously not until Ukraine strengthens it's military tho, hence the 20 year guesstimate. Realpolitik! I think I'm done with this thread for a while. Reading some of the posts here is a very unpleasant experience, plus arguing on the internet and all that.
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Sep 22, 2014 23:14
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Russian ТВЦ channel news just ran a segment where they talked about the origins of the Black Sea. Apparently, the ancient Ukrainians, or Ukrs, wanted a place to bathe and wash their clothes, so they dug the Black Sea. The Caucus/Crimean/Turkish mountains? Those were formed as a byproduct of all the digging. No, I'm not kidding.
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Jan 23, 2015 20:25
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| # ¿ May 22, 2024 09:21 |
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In the news report they are quoting "Ukrainian academics/historians" as the source, and the report is delivered with a huge dose of smugness, so it's probably a ploy to make the Russians watching the news laugh at how dumb the Ukrainians really are.
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Jan 23, 2015 20:50
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