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Pope Hilarius II posted:Reading this, I was reminded of my surprise after February 24 at the enormous public outcry in the rest of Europe at the Russian invasion. One of the reasons the outcry was so overwhelming is that to most Europeans, Ukraine is Europe. I'm quite sure that would not have been the case if Russia had invaded in 2002. I recall reading a book written by a Dutch journalist ~2000 who traveled around the "edges" of Europe, which included a trip to Odessa, where locals were ambivalent whether their city was really part of Europe or not. But 2004 saw the eastward expansions of the EU and NATO as well as the Orange Revolution as seminal events that a) began the process of convincing Western Europeans that Eastern Europe was well and truly 'Europe' and b) pushed Ukraine closer to that psychogeographical place due to internal events. This isn't an inevitable process, by the way: for Georgia, for instance, it's still very much a one-way street - Georgia itself wants to be more 'European' but Europeans themselves mostly don't regard Georgia as 'truly' European. Honestly I could tell you a lot about Georgia since I currently live here. On one hand Europe will more likely see Belarus as more european and Georgia outlandish due to simple season that it is very distinct their own culture. Nevertheless IMO they would fit well within the EU (provided they oust their current corrupt government). It pains me to say but likely better than my native Belarus. Georgians are in general laid-back, chill, friendly, don't feel like they need to prove anything about their identity. And loving LOVE techno music for some reason. The identity part is important. We Belarusians, like Ukranians are under constant attack by russian propaganda with a message that we simply don't exist. "Lesser brothers", "smaller nations", "slavic brotherhood" with Moscow in charge of course. Georgians were spared that due to not being Slavs and ancient statehood older than Moscow princedom even existed. Even their version of Orthdox Christianity has technically primacy over Russian one, because they did it almost a 1000 years before russia. There is a rank of Orthodox patriarchies with Georgian being the 5th and russia 9th. This rank cannot be changed. The point of this huge post is Georgians are awesome, Belarusians are being ruined by Lukashenko and his dead-eyed lackeys. Жыве Беларусь! Слава Украине!
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Oct 11, 2022 10:12
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Chill Monster posted:Just for the sake of not forgetting history, the US repeatedly considered nuking China during the Korean war. It's not like it was something that was off of the table. It just never came to it, fortunately for us. Yeah, but they didn't. I'm not arguing the point that we're in a uniquely dangerous position, that's a different side of the argument. I was just commenting on the basis of answering why NATO doesn't give Ukraine cruise missiles. That it's a line that hasn't been crossed (even though it's been considered). Phigs fucked around with this message at 10:23 on Oct 11, 2022 |
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Oct 11, 2022 10:19
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Sekenr posted:The identity part is important. We Belarusians, like Ukranians are under constant attack by russian propaganda with a message that we simply don't exist. "Lesser brothers", "smaller nations", "slavic brotherhood" with Moscow in charge of course.
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Oct 11, 2022 10:39
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uncleTomOfFinland posted:The Finnish ministry of health has issued a recommendation that every person between the ages of 3 and 40 should acquire iodine pills in case of radiation exposure. In Switzerland, they gave us a packet of iodine tablets when we moved into our apartment in Zurich because it was within like a 50 km radius of a NPP as standard procedure. I'm not sure how many other countries do that though, since I didn't get anything when I lived within a 30 km radius of Cattenom, which is one of the biggest NPPs in Europe (~90% the power generation of Zaporijjia's NPP).
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Oct 11, 2022 10:50
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Payndz posted:That prematurely-released (and hurriedly deleted) Russian state news agency piece about how great it was that Putin had launched his over-in-two-days total conquest repeatedly called Ukrainians "Little Russians", which struck me as unbearably patronising and demeaning. "You're not a real nation or a genuine culture, you're just provincial adjuncts to us, get back under our boot where you belong." It said so much about the mindset of Putin and his supporters towards Ukraine. It's a historical title which in correct context had no negative connotations because there were no modern national identities or nationalism yet, it was just a way of referring to the Tsar's realms. In modern nationalist context it's used to deny and erase a separate Ukrainian national identity and culture. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Russia
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Oct 11, 2022 10:51
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Saladman posted:In Switzerland, they gave us a packet of iodine tablets when we moved into our apartment in Zurich because it was within like a 50 km radius of a NPP as standard procedure. I'm not sure how many other countries do that though, since I didn't get anything when I lived within a 30 km radius of Cattenom, which is one of the biggest NPPs in Europe (~90% the power generation of Zaporijjia's NPP). It's always been a recommendation to have iodine at home. Just like the recommendation to have enough canned food, batteries and other necessities for a week. It's just that when the government reminds the public or updates the recommendations at times like these, some people go to instant toilet paper hoarding mode.
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Oct 11, 2022 10:56
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I was vaguely aware of the term 'Little Russians' prior to the war, but it felt so on the nose, that I assumed there had to be some deeper or more innocuous historical meaning that simply wasn't translating well into English or the modern context. Surely it couldn't be as horrendously patronising and dehumanising as it seemed at face value. But the war, that press release, and Putin's rants/essays have seemingly confirmed that continuing to use it is as actively and consciously imperialistic as it first implies.
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Oct 11, 2022 11:16
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Fun fact. The reason why Great Britain is great is that Ireland, the smaller of the two major British isles, used to be referred to as Little Britain. Suffice to say, calling an Irish person a Little Brit wouldn't fly today. Ironically, Wales is now called Little Britain in Irish.
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Oct 11, 2022 11:26
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Nenonen posted:It's a historical title which in correct context had no negative connotations because there were no modern national identities or nationalism yet, it was just a way of referring to the Tsar's realms. In modern nationalist context it's used to deny and erase a separate Ukrainian national identity and culture.
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Oct 11, 2022 11:40
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Hannibal Rex posted:https://www.economist.com/1843/2022/10/06/learn-to-kill-from-a-safe-distance-and-write-a-will-the-secret-diary-of-a-ukrainian-soldier-part-1 Great article, everyone should read to. Four weeks to go from pure civilian to a LT holy poo poo.
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Oct 11, 2022 11:44
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Pope Hilarius II posted:Reading this, I was reminded of my surprise after February 24 at the enormous public outcry in the rest of Europe at the Russian invasion. One of the reasons the outcry was so overwhelming is that to most Europeans, Ukraine is Europe. I'm quite sure that would not have been the case if Russia had invaded in 2002. I recall reading a book written by a Dutch journalist ~2000 who traveled around the "edges" of Europe, which included a trip to Odessa, where locals were ambivalent whether their city was really part of Europe or not. But 2004 saw the eastward expansions of the EU and NATO as well as the Orange Revolution as seminal events that a) began the process of convincing Western Europeans that Eastern Europe was well and truly 'Europe' and b) pushed Ukraine closer to that psychogeographical place due to internal events. This isn't an inevitable process, by the way: for Georgia, for instance, it's still very much a one-way street - Georgia itself wants to be more 'European' but Europeans themselves mostly don't regard Georgia as 'truly' European. I don't agree with this statement, at least from a German PoV. The countrys that mark the edge of Europe in public perception were always Turkey in the South and Russia in the North, with the question, whether these countries are European or not hotly debated. During the early 2000s most Germans viewed Russia as part of Europe, which is why the phrase "Security in Europe can only be established WITH Russia, not against" was very popular until February 24. And that's also why Russia's actions were seen as so shocking - the country viewed as major player in Europe was attacking westwards.. in the direction of "us". Additionally the anti-American sentiment that provides a lot of support for Putin wasn't nearly as strong at that time, the Iraq War (and later developments in Afghanistan) were major contributing factors for this. As to Georgia, the same logic applies. It's east of the Turkish and Russian western borders and thereby not European in the eyes of most Europeans - which is understandable, given that only 5% of it's landmass are considered to be European geographically.
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Oct 11, 2022 11:54
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uncleTomOfFinland posted:The Finnish ministry of health has issued a recommendation that every person between the ages of 3 and 40 should acquire iodine pills in case of radiation exposure.
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Oct 11, 2022 11:58
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Saladman posted:In Switzerland, they gave us a packet of iodine tablets when we moved into our apartment in Zurich because it was within like a 50 km radius of a NPP as standard procedure. I'm not sure how many other countries do that though, since I didn't get anything when I lived within a 30 km radius of Cattenom, which is one of the biggest NPPs in Europe (~90% the power generation of Zaporijjia's NPP). Yeah in the UK I used to live just under 15km from Bradwell NPP and we got given iodine tablets. No idea if the type or size of plant factors into the radius they issue them, this was an old and pretty small NPP.
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Oct 11, 2022 12:06
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Paladinus posted:Fun fact. The reason why Great Britain is great is that Ireland, the smaller of the two major British isles, used to be referred to as Little Britain. Suffice to say, calling an Irish person a Little Brit wouldn't fly today. Ironically, Wales is now called Little Britain in Irish. I'm pretty sure Little Britain is Brittany, and the distinction arose in the middle ages to differentiate between the two Britains when they were both called Bretagne in French.
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Oct 11, 2022 12:58
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Sekenr posted:Honestly I could tell you a lot about Georgia since I currently live here. On one hand Europe will more likely see Belarus as more european and Georgia outlandish due to simple season that it is very distinct their own culture. Nevertheless IMO they would fit well within the EU (provided they oust their current corrupt government). It pains me to say but likely better than my native Belarus. Georgians are in general laid-back, chill, friendly, don't feel like they need to prove anything about their identity. And loving LOVE techno music for some reason. Thank you for the interesting info.  
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Oct 11, 2022 12:59
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Sekenr posted:The identity part is important. We Belarusians, like Ukranians are under constant attack by russian propaganda with a message that we simply don't exist. "Lesser brothers", "smaller nations", "slavic brotherhood" with Moscow in charge of course. Georgians were spared that due to not being Slavs and ancient statehood older than Moscow princedom even existed. Even their version of Orthdox Christianity has technically primacy over Russian one, because they did it almost a 1000 years before russia. There is a rank of Orthodox patriarchies with Georgian being the 5th and russia 9th. This rank cannot be changed. Hell, this has spread to other nations - Poland has a lot of "rusycyzmy" which is to say russian-based/inspired words or phrases, or other parts of language. However, there is a great push now against one thing I never considered. We used to say "na Białorusi" and "na Ukrainie", and now people are moving towards "w Ukrainie". The difference is minute, but it carries a lot of weight - the "na" preposition is basically "at" but is used for parts of a country, for example if Florida Man strikes again, we would say that some poo poo has happened "na Florydzie", but "w USA". So by changing just this small thing, we are already giving Ukraine more national identity. And my whole life and whole life of my parents and grandparents we've been saying "na Ukrainie", and noone bats an eye. I find it beautiful that now I see this change when talking to my coworkers and friends that they use the "w" preposition. Yes I know that Ukraine (and Lithuania, still refered to as "na Litwie") used to be a part of Poland and that's why we have these language structures, but it's great to see my language reflect the current mood of the world. Something nice instead of kurwa this kurwa that
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Oct 11, 2022 13:00
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Kikas posted:Hell, this has spread to other nations - Poland has a lot of "rusycyzmy" which is to say russian-based/inspired words or phrases, or other parts of language. However, there is a great push now against one thing I never considered. We used to say "na Białorusi" and "na Ukrainie", and now people are moving towards "w Ukrainie". I guess the English equivalent would be like calling it “the Ukraine” instead of just “Ukraine” ?
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Oct 11, 2022 13:08
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Kikas posted:Hell, this has spread to other nations - Poland has a lot of "rusycyzmy" which is to say russian-based/inspired words or phrases, or other parts of language. However, there is a great push now against one thing I never considered. We used to say "na Białorusi" and "na Ukrainie", and now people are moving towards "w Ukrainie". Here in Ireland, it was commonplace to call Ukraine, "The Ukraine", but that's almost completely gone now. On our national broadcaster, the official pronunciation of Kyiv changed from Ke-ev to Keev, which I'm pretty sure is inaccurate, but I guess they really wanted to make it very clear the Russian version was not appropriate. Pookah fucked around with this message at 15:34 on Oct 11, 2022 |
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Oct 11, 2022 13:09
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Sekenr posted:Honestly I could tell you a lot about Georgia since I currently live here. On one hand Europe will more likely see Belarus as more european and Georgia outlandish due to simple season that it is very distinct their own culture. Nevertheless IMO they would fit well within the EU (provided they oust their current corrupt government). It pains me to say but likely better than my native Belarus. Georgians are in general laid-back, chill, friendly, don't feel like they need to prove anything about their identity. And loving LOVE techno music for some reason. Belarus and Ukraine, as you say, suffer from the challenge of being painted like degenerate Russians by the propaganda, and being in this cultural and identity gradient between the Slavic EU countries.
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Oct 11, 2022 13:28
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Deltasquid posted:I guess the English equivalent would be like calling it “the Ukraine” instead of just “Ukraine” ? That’s what “on Ukraine” got translated to, “the Ukraine”, yes.
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Oct 11, 2022 13:32
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It’s interesting because in Dutch, “de Oekraïne” would never work, grammatically speaking. But conversely we do say “de Krim” for Crimea. The subtle distinction exists also between Nederland and “de Nederlanden”, the former being used for the state, the latter for the geographical region (eg when talking about the Lowlands in the middle ages)
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Oct 11, 2022 14:38
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Deltasquid posted:It’s interesting because in Dutch, “de Oekraïne” would never work, grammatically speaking. But conversely we do say “de Krim” for Crimea. The word play in Russian is that “na Ukraine” is one vowel away “na okraine” - “in the periphery”.
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Oct 11, 2022 14:56
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cinci zoo sniper posted:The word play in Russian is that “na Ukraine” is one vowel away “na okraine” - “in the periphery”. I mean yeah that is the etymology of the word America is named after an Italian map maker and Rus' itself is a finno-urgic word for an oar so
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Oct 11, 2022 14:59
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FishBulbia posted:I mean yeah that is the etymology of the word The traditionalist interpretation of the etymology, yes. There’s an alternative early 20th century etymology take as well, however, that posits that “oukraina” means a specific territory, in distinction from “okraina” meaning a borderland, e.g., http://litopys.org.ua/pivtorak/pivt.htm - though given the early 20th century history of Ukraine, this etymological take could be argued against as an attempt of revisionism.
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Oct 11, 2022 15:14
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OAquinas posted:Also of interest is that two of their launch sites are in areas that are either hostile to them or getting chillier--french guiana and Baikonur in Kazakhstan, respectively. Russia has been trying to build a replacement for Baikonur in Siberia (Vostochny) for over a decade and failing because too much funding keeps mysteriously disappearing. They've managed a few launches but it's still nowhere near done. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vostochny_Cosmodrome Lum_ fucked around with this message at 15:23 on Oct 11, 2022 |
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Oct 11, 2022 15:18
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:Great article, everyone should read to. Four weeks to go from pure civilian to a LT holy poo poo. Here's some perspective on how that compares to peacetime training in the US Army. It's kind of apples to oranges (obviously you rush things in a life-or-death war like Ukraine is in), it's just to give some sense of scale. To become an infantry private in the US Army was 14 weeks for a long time, later extended to 22 weeks. That's the total training before you're allowed to even report to your unit and be the noobiest noob in the platoon. The fastest officer training track (not counting doctors or whatever) is 12 weeks at OCS plus like 15+ weeks of branch-specific training. That assumes you already have a 4 year degree in pocket; West Point and ROTC get you your degree concurrent with your military training and take 4 years. There's plenty of fluff in peacetime Army training, but even so, 4 weeks is uh really loving fast.
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Oct 11, 2022 15:20
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I suppose a better comparison would be something like the training times for European or British soldiers in WW2, anyone know what those rough timescales were?
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Oct 11, 2022 15:30
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FishBulbia posted:I mean yeah that is the etymology of the word In the context of discussing the naming of Ukraine, it's a bit funny to casually pick a Russian revisionist/nationalist stance on the etymology of Russia - instead of the mainstream etymology which has an old norse origin (referring to Swedes who settled as the ruling class of what became Russia). I know you're very much not a nationalist, so I'm actually a bit baffled by this. (I also recognize that the refusal to acknowledge the norse historical link is not unique to Russian nationalists, but is very much a thing among some Ukrainian nationalists too). The etymology of Ukraine just makes it less acceptable to use the wrong pronoun/grammar - similar to how people with defunct national, regional or ethnic monikers of colonial etymological origin should be respected if they insist on those terms not being used.
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Oct 11, 2022 15:31
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:I suppose a better comparison would be something like the training times for European or British soldiers in WW2, anyone know what those rough timescales were? Britain was 12 weeks, six weeks of general training and then another six of infantry training, in WW2. Four weeks is fast.
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Oct 11, 2022 15:33
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Morrow posted:Britain was 12 weeks, six weeks of general training and then another six of infantry training, in WW2. Yeah, US Marine training in WWII was 13-17 weeks according to google, some other sources quote 8 weeks of basic and 8 weeks of field training for the US Army.
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Oct 11, 2022 15:44
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I wonder how much that was impacted by them being fairly safe from direct invasion via land. I might look up what French training period was during the world wars (well, inasmuch they even had time in ww2, but maybe during the phoney war)
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Oct 11, 2022 15:54
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Henrik Zetterberg posted:Whoa, that building looks cool. What is it? A little Googling suggests it's called the Delrey. An upscale residential/commercial building still under construction.
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Oct 11, 2022 16:03
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Kikas posted:Hell, this has spread to other nations - Poland has a lot of "rusycyzmy" which is to say russian-based/inspired words or phrases, or other parts of language. However, there is a great push now against one thing I never considered. We used to say "na Białorusi" and "na Ukrainie", and now people are moving towards "w Ukrainie". You see this in Russian, too (though "na" isn't so much used for internal parts of a larger place, but like islands and events). Moscow standard Russian is "на Украине," Russian spoken in Ukraine is "в Украине." Something I've noticed since the war is that Russian opposition media (like Zona or Medusa) has started using the "v" preposition instead of the standard "na". It's possible they've done that since before the war, but at least to me it looks like a subtle political positioning thing.
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Oct 11, 2022 16:04
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Deltasquid posted:It’s interesting because in Dutch, “de Oekraïne” would never work, grammatically speaking. But conversely we do say “de Krim” for Crimea. I'm also Dutch-speaking, but from Belgium, and "de Oekraïne" doesn't sound that wrong to me. Anyway, the definitive way you can tell if a country is in Europe, is if they are in the Eurovision Song Contest.
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Oct 11, 2022 16:06
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uXs posted:I'm also Dutch-speaking, but from Belgium, and "de Oekraïne" doesn't sound that wrong to me. Ukraine is arguably the country that gets Eurovision better than anyone else. I only realised early this year that most of my favorites over the years are Ukranian.
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Oct 11, 2022 16:11
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uXs posted:I'm also Dutch-speaking, but from Belgium, and "de Oekraïne" doesn't sound that wrong to me. So am I, but it does. Don't think there's any country with an article without an explicit koninkrijk/kingdom or republiek/republic in the name (and even then you'd need to be dragging it out to "the islamic republic of Iran" or "the Russian kleptocracy"). uXs posted:Anyway, the definitive way you can tell if a country is in Europe, is if they are in the Eurovision Song Contest. This is how people mistake australia for austria.
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Oct 11, 2022 16:17
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Deltasquid posted:I wonder how much that was impacted by them being fairly safe from direct invasion via land. I might look up what French training period was during the world wars (well, inasmuch they even had time in ww2, but maybe during the phoney war) A better analogue might be the Soviets during WW2. A memoir from that period mentions the standard training of 3 months shortened to 2 weeks during the heaviest fighting for example. https://iremember.ru/en/memoirs/infantrymen/ivan-shelepov/
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Oct 11, 2022 16:17
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Update on the frontline situation - according to War Mapper, no notable changes to control occurred yesterday. It seems like the Ukrainians have run out of steam for now. Makes sense, you can't keep up such a blistering pace forever. uXs posted:I'm also Dutch-speaking, but from Belgium, and "de Oekraïne" doesn't sound that wrong to me. I am also Flemish, and I would never say "de Oekraïne". I'd definitely raise my eyebrows if I heard that. Wondering if it's a regional thing, steamed hams style
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Oct 11, 2022 16:29
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Morrow posted:Britain was 12 weeks, six weeks of general training and then another six of infantry training, in WW2. I mean from that economist article it sounds like much of the training was a highly preliminary thing and nowhere near sufficient to properly impart the knowledge needed to do the job. It seems the thing that made up the difference was that in addition to whatever training these guys got - they went out on their own to add on top of it and this action was fueled by their intense motivation to fight for their country. If they just did what they "had to" I imagine the troop quality wouldn't be much better than the Russian one. I wonder if many of the people like the writer of that diary were later sent back for more proper follow-up training once the situation was less "dire".
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Oct 11, 2022 16:29
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:Great article, everyone should read to. Four weeks to go from pure civilian to a LT holy poo poo. Since Ukraine has conscription these four weeks might also be a refresher to remind them of what they did during their mandatory service which is often 6-12 months I think. The guy's diary makes no mention of previous service though so it might just be these four weeks and then to the front.
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Oct 11, 2022 16:37
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