Ukraine

[ben8884]

On 4/5/2022 at 1:32 PM, Still said:

 

 

The ICC has never convicted a non-African of war crimes, so we already know Putin won't face any justice from them 😞

Except for Nuremberg this is true. Trouble is, short of invading Russia and taking Putin to the Hague, there isn't much anyone can do. They can hold a trial without him being there but it would be largely symbolic.

[Zagadka]

The official policy on Ukraine from the US right now is to punish Russia regardless of the cost without consideration for an offramp for peace to end the immediate crisis, with a seeming effect of simply prolonging it in a quest for ultimate justice, which will never happen.

[ben8884]

I don't know what the solution to all this is. We can't take on Russia in a war but we can't let them take Ukraine either. 

[ukrguy]

So I got my salary today. 176 USD net. 76 goes to the room I rent and 100 left to live for 1 month. Before the war I got 300 net...

[daveb]

Good luck, @ukrguy!

[Sally]

On 4/17/2022 at 6:59 PM, gwennol said:

except, y'know, most nations with a history of colonialism

Colonialism does not include the intent to exterminate a particular group of people, since the colonialists want to use the natives for commercial profit, as the English did in India, and the Spanish did in mesoamerica.  The British settlers in America didn't immediately intend to kill the Native Americans -- they did so after the natives fought to keep the lands they lived on.  Germany obviously intended to exterminate all Jews, everywhere -- that wasn't a colonial intent.   

[Sally]

On 4/20/2022 at 11:09 AM, ben8884 said:

I don't know what the solution to all this is. We can't take on Russia in a war but we can't let them take Ukraine either. 

I'm afraid that they are taking Ukraine.  By "taking" I don't mean that they will be able to subjugate every section of the country -- but they will be able to destroy enough infrastructure and kill enough people that there will be no Ukrainian government possible.  

[ben8884]

I wonder if anything can be done to stop this

[JimmyJazz]

I think it's a question now of who will blink first. Putin does not seem in a rush here, he can feasibly prolong this and boast a victory when the Western states bankrolling Ukraine's resistance movement throw in the towel. 

 

We had a budget recently in the UK, plenty was made of whether the UK government is doing enough to arrest the cost of living crisis. We're now giving Ukraine millions, for valid reasons of course, but the increase in foreign aid is not going to help resolve these domestic issues and I'm not convinced of how long the public will remain patient.

[Zagadka]

1 hour ago, JimmyJazz said:

I think it's a question now of who will blink first. Putin does not seem in a rush here, he can feasibly prolong this and boast a victory when the Western states bankrolling Ukraine's resistance movement throw in the towel. 

 

We had a budget recently in the UK, plenty was made of whether the UK government is doing enough to arrest the cost of living crisis. We're now giving Ukraine millions, for valid reasons of course, but the increase in foreign aid is not going to help resolve these domestic issues and I'm not convinced of how long the public will remain patient.

There are plenty of social programs they are itching to cut to further unquestioningly fund the military (and defense contractors). If this turns into a 20 years quagmire, it is a win for politicians.

 

Military action is easy and popular. Finding an actual solution and making concessions to a monster is difficult and unpopular. Rhetoric to 11, military funding to 12.

[ben8884]

Problem is though, we can't just abandon Ukraine to Putin. Honestly the only hope as I see it is, if things go bad enough for Putin, the oligarchs quietly replace him with someone who is willing to talk peace. I don't know how likely this is, only the future can tell.

[Zagadka]

1 hour ago, ben8884 said:

Problem is though, we can't just abandon Ukraine to Putin. Honestly the only hope as I see it is, if things go bad enough for Putin, the oligarchs quietly replace him with someone who is willing to talk peace. I don't know how likely this is, only the future can tell.

Certainly, but the tactic of calling Putin a war criminal committing genocide who must be stopped and removed from power at any cost is not going to produce anything, and removes possibilities for negotiating an end to the conflict (should those come up).

 

I think the best strategy is to do what we can to end the immediate crisis. We are facing a very long term struggle and global geopolitical rebalance. This isn't going to end with Putin blinking.

[Charna]

1 hour ago, Zagadka said:

Certainly, but the tactic of calling Putin a war criminal committing genocide who must be stopped and removed from power at any cost is not going to produce anything, and removes possibilities for negotiating an end to the conflict (should those come up).

Putin is a dictator, he doesn't care what you, or any of your politicians call him. Both the Russian TV and Russian politicians are openly discussing genocide. They are saying out loud what you are afraid to say, and yet you think you keeping quiet somehow impacts the chances for negotiating.

[Zagadka]

13 hours ago, Charna said:

Putin is a dictator, he doesn't care what you, or any of your politicians call him. Both the Russian TV and Russian politicians are openly discussing genocide. They are saying out loud what you are afraid to say, and yet you think you keeping quiet somehow impacts the chances for negotiating.

Stating an intent to regime change a dictator already committing a genocide who has nuclear weapons and the other 85% of his military surely won't have any repercussions. Stay the course, he will surely hear the mean words and stop. 👍

[daveb]

At this point I highly doubt anything anyone says or does will have any impact on anything Putin says or does. In any direction/capacity. But I'm no Kremlinologist. 

[Zagadka]

I think the focus right now should be finding an offramp to ceasing the current military action as soon as possible.

 

Putin is going to stay in power, and we will have to live with it. Pushing constant and more war that is just not going to end is not going to make the situation for Ukrainians in an occupied warzone better.

 

 

Edit:

 

I suppose some perspective: I've been watching genocides being committed for decades, continued and exacerbated for years. As I said earlier, there is no comparison of one with another, but this powerless feeling is how it goes.

[Charna]

On 4/23/2022 at 8:03 AM, Zagadka said:

Stating an intent to regime change a dictator already committing a genocide who has nuclear weapons and the other 85% of his military surely won't have any repercussions. Stay the course, he will surely hear the mean words and stop. 👍

You don't get it, Putin cares about mean words as much as nice words, which is not at all. Putin knows very well what can cause his regime to fall, as he knows the history of Russia. It is failing to deliver a victory. And as a dictator he creates his own victory narrative and so he chose genocide. Because he has learned from previous wars that matter what atrocities he commits, there will be always enough people in the West willing to compromise and appease. 

 

Calling Putin a war criminal isn't about causing a regime change in Russia, it is to change this Western appeasment policy that led to Syria after Chechenya, and now to Ukraine after Syria. 

 

 

[Zagadka]

7 hours ago, Charna said:

You don't get it, Putin cares about mean words as much as nice words, which is not at all. Putin knows very well what can cause his regime to fall, as he knows the history of Russia. It is failing to deliver a victory. And as a dictator he creates his own victory narrative and so he chose genocide. Because he has learned from previous wars that matter what atrocities he commits, there will be always enough people in the West willing to compromise and appease. 

 

Calling Putin a war criminal isn't about causing a regime change in Russia, it is to change this Western appeasment policy that led to Syria after Chechenya, and now to Ukraine after Syria.

I am unclear on what you are gaining from escalating global conflict and kicking Russia out of every international group and communications.

[Ksenia]

I think that from the historical point of view current conflict is a consequence of dissolution of the Soviet Union. When  totalitarian political organism dies then something terrible can happen. There were terrible massacres in the former Yougyslavia at that time, for example. The president of the Soviet Union due to his politics  at that days  postponed such consequence for few decades later, but I think  that  from the historical perspective wars between different former Soviet Republics (Azerbaijan and Armenia, Russia and Ukraine) were inevitable. 

[Mastrangelo]

15 hours ago, Ksenia said:

I think that from the historical point of view current conflict is a consequence of dissolution of the Soviet Union. When  totalitarian political organism dies then something terrible can happen. There were terrible massacres in the former Yougyslavia at that time, for example. The president of the Soviet Union due to his politics  at that days  postponed such consequence for few decades later, but I think  that  from the historical perspective wars between different former Soviet Republics (Azerbaijan and Armenia, Russia and Ukraine) were inevitable. 

There are similarities between the massacres in the former Yugoslavia and this what's going on these days in Ukraine, but these conflicts are different in their cores.

 

Former Yugoslavia was a multi-ethnic federation of 6 countries with two important problems in the long-term perspective. The first one was that a significant number of people of one nation/religion lived in other countries, especially Bosnia. The second one was a huge historical conflict between Serbs and Croats. In WWII Croatian fascists killed, persecuted, and forcibly converted many Serbs to Catholicism, they did the most disgusting crimes you will ever find in human history. Such a federation which included both Serbs and Croats was very weak from the beginning and bound to disappear at some point. Croats never really wanted this federation, they wanted their independence all the time which was obvious from the actions of their fascist movement especially during 1970s. Even the most capable and skilled dictator can't control such an artificial creation. So, the only real conflict in the former Yugoslavia was this one, the rest was artificially supported by external forces. Surprisingly enough, having people belonging to different religions has never made such a big problems as it could have been assumed in the beginning. Here I refer to spontaneous/naturally created problems. However, later it will turn out that it was another weakness of this federation which was heavily exploited in the 1990s by the western propaganda machinery to put all blame on Serbs for the sake of their strategic geopolitical goals.

 

On the other side, Russians and Ukrainians were very compatible, without such tragic conflicts from the past. Both Russian and Ukrainian soldiers fought against Nazi Germany in the WWII and two Soviet soldiers put the famous Soviet flag in Berlin on the 2nd of May 1945. One of them was Russian, another one Ukrainian. For this reason we can't compare conflicts in the former Yugoslavia and Ukraine. Further, I don't see why this conflict in Ukraine was inevitable. I don't think that Russian influence in Ukraine wasn't something natural considering their history and the number of Russians who live in Ukraine. Ukraine had a leading industry role in the Soviet Union, it's not that they were neglected by Kremlin. Another big problem is spreading of NATO and their past activities in the countries that are far from their territories, especially Balkans. I don't see why it's not a serious fact to say that NATO is spreading their territory everywhere for no good reason. They say they are a defensive organization but they bombed Serbia in 1999 and threw depleted uranium which now kills thousands of people from malignant diseases. Taking all these facts into consideration, isn't it natural that the only way for Ukraine to keep existing was to take a strictly neutral role? And it would have been possible without western influence. But now NATO is sending weapons for what? For Slavs to kill other Slavs. That's a classical clash of civilizations.

 

As I wrote previously, it turned out there are some similarities in these conflicts in the former Yugoslavia and Ukraine. Both had Fascist/Nazi ideas in the background, respectively, and this led indirectly to massacres. Both conflicts were supported by NATO and both times NATO supported Fascist/Nazi side hiding this fact behind their well-known "human rights" demagogy. Apparently human rights are so important now while NATO bombing of Serbia had a nonofficial name "Merciful angel". However, despite this external interference of western forces, the former Yugoslav conflict hardly could have been avoided since it wasn't a homogeneous union as a whole. At the same time, the Ukrainian conflict is something directly supported/triggered by western forces by installing and supporting a puppet government, arming Nazi structures, opening the possibility for Ukraine to join NATO. The last one is an unforgivable sin for cruel geopolitical rules of the game.

 

All in all, my point is that Yugoslav wars couldn't have been avoided while this one in Ukraine was artificially created for the sake of killing Slavs.

[Ksenia]

8 hours ago, Mastrangelo said:

On the other side, Russians and Ukrainians were very compatible, without such tragic conflicts from the past. Both Russian and Ukrainian soldiers fought against Nazi Germany in the WWII and two Soviet soldiers put the famous Soviet flag in Berlin on the 2nd of May 1945.

It is not so simple. A lot of Ukrainians fight on the side of Wehrmacht. Also from historical perspective the first split between North Eastern Rus (future  Moscovia and Russia) and Southern West Rus dates back to the year 1169.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sack_of_Kiev_(1169) There are a lot of historical  conflicts and controvesies which were accumulated for centuries. Also claim that Russians and Ukrains are the same people is very dangerous. It is denying the right of people on self determination and on their historical identity. It is problematic that a lot of Russians not only deny sovereignty of the neigbhors (it is consequence of the imperial mentality) but also deny their national identity. It is the main reason of such conflict. Also the first  Russian's territorial pretensions to the Urkaine regarding Crimea in the modern history dates back to the year 1992. It means that Putin's politics isn't new, from the begining of the modern Russian Federation there were pretensions to  the neighbors.  You could combine such territorial pretensions with imperial mentality, denying national identity of neighbors and result would be  a catosrope (war). And it is exactily what happened. Strong Soviet power suppressed nationalism and cultivated internationalism for the sake of building communism, but now we don't care about bright future (in fact there is no modern enlightenment  humanistic   project in Russia, ideas related to marxism are dismantled, and ideas related to modern western liberalism are not established), so archaic imperial and national patterns emerged, and it is historical consequence of the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Soviet government suppressed archaic tendencies by it's european enlightenment project (it is doubtless that marxism is  a european  project) and massive mobilization of people around such project. Russian Federation on the orher hand is based on the massive demobilization and archaic instincts/patterns (imperialism, denying the rights of neighbors on self determination, identity, some hate to the West, absence of enlightenment  project, etc).  I think that there can be a positive results of the war: archaic antimodern elements die faster during the war. War is a form acceleration of historical processes. I hope that we will eventually begin to build modern national (not imperial) state with modern enlightenment humanistic  ideas.

[Mastrangelo]

You are looking at this whole topic too partially, as a group of isolated cases. It's impossible to analyze Russian actions without looking at a big picture and what's going on in the rest of the world. Partially looking we could always find this imperial mentality in actions of all big forces. Of course, it's fair to say that everyone has a right to claim their identity and similar but it's not in nature of big forces to allow this. Putin indeed shows many megalomaniac traits in his behavior, his stances, I believe that he sees himself as a Russian tsar, but despite that I don't find anything illogical in Russian actions if we analyze it from a realistic and not idealistic point of view. Russia can't allow Ukraine to spread nationalism and be completely independent from Russia, not to mention joining NATO. Russia used American interventions as a justification for their own actions in Chechnya and Georgia. However, we can't neglect that beside territory another very important factor are natural resources. Oil wells in the Caspian Sea probably were the most important reason for Chechen wars. The same way Donbass is industrial heart of Ukraine thus in the center of Russian pretensions beside other reasons. I agree that Russia kept old pretensions but isn't it normal to claim all the time that something is yours? Imagine that any country loses their territory this or that way and claims that it's not their territory. It's against healthy reasoning. Even if you lost your territory 1000 years ago you shouldn't give up on that territory ever because only that way you save your right to take it back someday.

 

I understand your point that you blame Russia for imperial politics, suffocating other nations/countries in their surroundings, etc. but history is full of wars and the most important thing has always been territory. Today one force is powerful and spreads but tomorrow another one might appear and take your territory without asking anything. We are far from a civilized world. History has always been a movement of some kind, you can't expect that we all will live in peace without any tendency to progress and win.

[Ksenia]

1 hour ago, Mastrangelo said:

Russia can't allow Ukraine to spread nationalism and be completely independent from Russia,

Such idea is based on geopolitics. I am not sure that such approach is scientific and it can explain real history. Geopolitics can't explain a lot of historical processes, it is ok for the computer games (Victori 2, EU4), not for reality. From historical perspective the whole dissolution of the Soviet Union is a changeof the enlightenment  project  for Russia, Urkain and Belarus and some other states  from the marxism to liberalism. We had decided to abandon the idea of  internatioal communism and begin to build commonwealth of modern national liberal states, but such change of paradigm is very difficult to make peacful, there is always a lot of backlashes for such thing. That's why there is war. After such war no one will say that Ukraine is a part of Russia. It means that such war actualize Belavezha accords (it confirms existence of indenependent postSoviet state) and cement the dissolution of the Soviet Union, also such war can eleminate archaic elements. 

[Ksenia]

1 hour ago, Mastrangelo said:

 Even if you lost your territory 1000 years ago you shouldn't give up on that territory ever because only that way you save your right to take it back someday.

I don' t understand your point regarding the territory. Soviet Union was conceived as confederation of socialist republics. It was conceived  that the whole world would eventually become the Soviet Union, that there would be Soviet Republic of Italy, Soviet Republic of France, Soviet Republic of Australia, etc. Look at the emblem of the Soviet Union. The whole world on this emblem is a Soviet Union. After the whole world united and build communism then Soviet Union according to theoretics of communism should be dissolved (there are no states in communism). If we decided not to build communism then what is the point of integration of a lot of territories in one state? There is no point of such integration, that why the Soviet Union was dissolved. Why should Ukraine join Russia? Russia doesn't suggest any project for integration, there is no goal for such integration, there are only archaic ideas related to domination and geopolitics. 

[ben8884]

In the Budapest Memorandum in 1994, Russia agreed to acknowledge Ukranian sovereignty.

Also, yesterday the Canadian Parliament voted unanimously to declare this invasion a genocide.

[Ksenia]

7 hours ago, ben8884 said:

In the Budapest Memorandum in 1994, Russia agreed to acknowledge Ukranian sovereignty.

Also, yesterday the Canadian Parliament voted unanimously to declare this invasion a genocide.

Mr Putin thinks that only weaklings respect treatis. Real "presidents " don't care about treaties, rules and laws. I know, it looks like that he is villain  cartoon character, but it can be true. 

[Kimmie.]

On 4/21/2022 at 3:58 PM, ukrguy said:

So I got my salary today. 176 USD net. 76 goes to the room I rent and 100 left to live for 1 month. Before the war I got 300 net...

How are you? 

[ukrguy]

I'm doing okay thank you, finally got my advance for May 

[Unleash the Echidnas]

 🤣🤣🤣

 

Not sure if this is specifically in reference to dropping an entire BTG trying to cross the Donets, the Ха́рків counteroffensive, Суми retreat eastward advance, and recent spectacular moonshots along with Finland. But it doesn't really matter.

[daveb]

7 hours ago, ukrguy said:

I'm doing okay thank you, finally got my advance for May 

Good to hear!  

 

Best wishes over there!