Talking about narratives. "Kill the brutes" seems like an interesting series which I'm going to watch instead of post. :wink: — Benkei

Don't let the denazification of Ukraine disturb you:

“What should Russia do with Ukraine?” published by the news agency RIA Novosti, declares that Russian forces should not draw sharp distinctions between Ukraine’s military and civilians.

“Denazification is necessary when a significant part of the people – most likely the majority – has been absorbed and drawn into politics by the Nazi regime. That is, when the hypothesis “the people are good – the government is bad” does not work,” it states.

The RIA article, written by Timofei Sergeitsev, goes on to say that “a significant part of the popular mass, which are passive Nazis, accomplices of Nazism, is also guilty… War criminals and active Nazis must be punished approximately and demonstratively. Total purification should be carried out.”

They appear to be Russian soldiers. Because they're meant to appear to be Russian soldiers, that's the point of the propaganda image.

Propaganda is something which is presented to appear to be one thing, when it is, in fact, another. — Isaac

That's totally illogical and basically a strawman argument. It is Putin who is saying that those forces in the picture are Crimean volunteers.

And there's a massive amount of pictures of similar clothed soldiers suddenly appearing in Crimea simply cannot be propaganda when covered by all the various media and social media output. Just by whom? No, stick really to the example: the pictures of those soldiers were said to be Crimean volunteers by Russia.

You simply have to have common sense here.

Where we went wrong is not making serious progress in trying to increase economic interdependence with Russia in the 90s when circumstances were right. — Benkei

What's your argumentation here? As if we didn't want to have trade with Russia? On the contrary, the Europeans would have just loved to have that commerce and trade with Russia, just the same way as we have wanted with China. The idea went, just like with China, that economic prosperity will make these countries have better relations with us. And that they will change to be like us and value things like rule of law and democracy (and the usual stuff).

Instead the West collectively chose to keep treating them as enemies. That was the wrong policy. — Benkei

What policy are you talking about?

The policy of making the G7 countries to be the G8 countries with Russia?

By NATO making the Partnership for Peace agreement with Russia?

By having a multitude of "resets" in the US-Russian relationship?

Just to take one example of the attitudes...that actually were in hindsight doomed:

In one of his earliest new foreign policy initiatives, President Obama sought to reset relations with Russia and reverse what he called a “dangerous drift” in this important bilateral relationship. President Obama and his administration have sought to engage the Russian government to pursue foreign policy goals of common interest – win-win outcomes -- for the American and Russian people.

To see everything as the fault of us is wrong as there obviously are two sides in this relationship.

Attitudes really changed only after 2014. And now this year.

Wow. You're going with "It looks like a lie to me, therefore it must be one". Because you're infallible? — Isaac

No. But you can use your own judgement. Some of the most blatant lies are so obvious.

Or is that too difficult for you to understand?

The key pert, for our purposes here, being thatit will look like one thing. So if you just take everything to be the way it looks to be, then you'll fall for every single propaganda piece presented to you. — Isaac

Again. Let's look at that picture. Do these look like volunteers, people that have lived in Crimea, yet in the days after the Maidan revolution have taken up arms against the new Ukrainian government? Or do they appear to be Russian soldiers?

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What really pisses me off is how no European government calls it out, while we're the ones that run all the major risks, because of financial risks and energy dependence, right after the Ukrainians. — Benkei

Being dependent on energy from a totalitarian regime like Putin's Russia, which will use that dependence as a way to imply pressure has been a wrong policy. That energy policy has to be changed. Germany should show resolve in this too. Hopefully it will change it's policies.

How about asking the Ukrainians? About Ukraine, you know, where they live (and are now bombed)? About what they want? — jorndoe

Those who see sphere's of influence as an obvious reality, greater countries dominating weaker ones and annexations of territories of sovereign states as totally justified simply don't care about issues like that.

I see the rationality of Curtis LeMays' view: it would have resulted in submissive, united Russia, prosperous and peaceful. — FreeEmotion

How can you be certain of that? A nuclear change could have also resulted in just millions of dying yet in a stalemate like in the Korean war and the Soviet Union still persisting with only now the World having experienced a wider nuclear war. And some American cities being destroyed.

Yet a nuclear holocaust wasn't inevitable. Not only did it not happen, but the Soviet Union collapsed and before that there actually was nuclear disarmament. Hence LeMay's "rationality" was not only wrong, but actually quite dangerous.

I think we have to understand that wars aren't inevitable.

Both sides lie. So why believe one and not the other? — Isaac

And you don't see an obvious lie when it's presented? In your postmodern life you are totally unable in every issue to do that?

Because when truth fits someones agenda, they won't lie. They can tell the truth then. You can separate the event and how something is represented.

I'll get back to that previous picture.

What is so hard to say that in the picture they are obviously Russian soldiers? I think it's quite easy to notice that they indeed are in the picture Russian soldiers. It's not something that "Oh, we don't know! We don't have sufficient information!"

Because if it wouldn't be so, you really believe looking at that picture that those are what Crimean volunteers as Putin declared them to be. So before they were ethnic Russians living in Ukrainian Crimea, then Maidan happened and they got from somewhere got all that similar equipment and rounded up all the fit military age men.

And pigs fly.

I don't understand this proposition at all. If you already know the 'truth' (such that you know one side tells the truth and the other lies) then why would you "look for the truth" at all? You already know it. — Isaac

Of course not... :roll:

OK: Consider for example the case of Putin's little green men. A picture from the 2014 invasion:



Do the above men look as to be part of a Crimean volunteer force that sprang up because of the turmoil in the country? Or do they look like Russian paratroops that don't have the Russian flag insignia on their arm?

In order to draw a conclusion which possibility is correct, perhaps you then have to have some idea about just what would a "volunteer force" during political turmoil would look like and what Russian paratroops in their newest gear would look like. And if you don't know anything about the gear, then look at the age of the men. Volunteer militias are usually made up of young and old men while armies are made of fit service age males.

Yet during that time, this was all too confusing for journalists who I remember clearly didn't want to make conclusions at first just who the soldiers were... because it wasn't told to them. So they were "little green men".

I'm trying to understand people who are quick to defend Russia. I mean people like Benkei, who may not qualify as apologist, but seems to jump to defend Putin in a way he wouldn't for other leaders, particularly an American president.

What is behind that? Does it come down to anti-American sentiment where any enemy of the US is a friend? If not, then what? Do you have an idea? — frank

I think people can explain themselves better.

But at least @Isaac has been pretty consistent in his reasoning that he doesn't want that the US would be seen as a "A Knight in White Shining Armour".

Yet if one side tells the truth in favorable terms and the other side fabricates an utter lie, is then the best thing to look for the truth in the middle?

No.

You have to disregard the lie and understand the agenda of the other.

As I recall it was an Ukrainian air force plane, a large one, at altitude, which should have sent alarm bells ringing. Interestingly, the route over Ukraine was changed due to the war there. — FreeEmotion

I was referring to this case:

Siberia Airlines Flight 1812 was a commercial flight shot down by the Ukrainian Air Force over the Black Sea on 4 October 2001, en route from Tel Aviv, Israel to Novosibirsk, Russia. The aircraft, a Soviet-made Tupolev Tu-154, carried 66 passengers and 12 crew members. Most of the passengers were Israelis visiting relatives in Russia. There were no survivors. The crash site is about 190 km west-southwest of the Black Sea resort of Sochi, 140 km north of the Turkish coastal town of Fatsa and 350 km south-southeast of Feodosiya in Crimea. The accident resulted from combat-missile launches during joint Ukrainian-Russian military air-defence exercises. The exercises were held at the Russian-controlled training ground of the 31st Russian Black Sea Fleet Research center on Cape Opuk near the city of Kerch in Crimea. Ukraine eventually admitted that it might have caused the crash, probably by an errant S-200 missile fired by its armed forces. Ukraine paid $15 million to surviving family members of the 78 victims ($200,000 per victim).

Other than that I find your optimism misplaced. Nagasaki and Hiroshima and the fire bombing of Tokyo ring a bell? How many were court martialed? Iraq? Afghanistan? Libya? Kosovo? Anything? Torture and renditions? What's Cheney doing nowadays anyway? — Benkei

I don't think I was an optimist in any way. I just explained that even if nations can be theoretically against warcrimes and try preventing civilian casualties, it doesn't mean that warcrimes wouldn' happen. Yet if your strategy is to affect the civilian population, be it the firebombings of Japan, ethnic cleansing in the Balkans or the way Russia fought in Chechnya (and seems to be fighting in Ukraine), there something more to it than just the act of random violence. It's just then that the scale can be far greater.

At least Arthur "Bomber" Harris had the decency to understand that he would have been tried as a war criminal if the UK had lost. I'm not so sure how Curtis LeMay thought about it. He perhaps would have wanted have that nuclear war in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis, when Russia had only a few ICBMs. He surely saw the "brief but bloody" war something that would prevent from the "long and bloody" war, which is quite dubious.



But of course, we are here talking about the war in Ukraine that was perpetrated by mr Putin.

As Benkei (an actual lawyer) has already pointed out, there does need to be some sort of credible investigation, chance for the accused to defend themselves, and, ideally, some sort of impartial trial to determine war crimes, or crimes in general. — boethius

But of course.

In the case of the shooting down of MH17 there was an extensive investigation by the Dutch Safety Board and the criminal investigation was one of the largest in Dutch history with dozens of prosecutors and 200 investigators. And those responsible were found. Of course this incident appears to have been an incident of "collateral damage" as usually shooting downs of civilian aircraft are. Actually earlier Ukraine accidentally shot down a Russian airliner using a truly old SA-5 surface to air missile (which has it's own radar in the missile and can fly very far). The ordinary thing would be to acknowledge the mistake (Oops.) and pay compensation for the families. The US did that when USS Vincennes shot down an Iranian airliner.

But this is not the way how Russia operates. It's just denies the truth perpetually. If you deny it, someone will believe you.

Additionally, war crimes by individual soldiers or units (which I do not doubt has happened; it's essentially guaranteed in any war) do not automatically translate to being war crimes of the military or the government. It must be some sort of institutionalised policy or direct order. — boethius

Again something very obvious. In Abu Ghraib the military policemen didn't invent out of boredom to humiliate the Iraqi inmates. They were specifically told to do so. It's actually rather difficult to hide a chain of command is something is perpetrated by en masse compared to one individual event.

When it comes to warcrimes, you can see when something is an act of one individual and when something is done systemically.

What that's got to do with the comment you cited, which was about the morality of fighting for universals such as 'national identity', I'm afraid I've no idea. — Isaac

When you are killed as an Ukrainian nazi, A Chechen islamist terrorist or a Syrian jihadist... or a supporter of them, you don't choose yourself that "national" identity. The guy who shoots you has decided that on behalf of you.

The more the Russians murder innocent bystanders, children, grandmothers and the likes, the more hospitals, maternities and supermarket they bomb , the harder it will be to make any lasting peace. Ukrainians will never forgive such a behavior from their neighbours. I think they could forgive the war, being attacked for nothing, but not the massacre of defenseless innocents. Russian heads will have to roll now. — Olivier5

There's plenty of anti-Americanism going around and hypocrisy is one of the first thing spoken about. How can they complain about human rights abuses when they had their renditions, water boarding and torture, Abu Ghraib? How can they complain about aggression when we had aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan? — Benkei

At least there are differences. The most obvious difference between US warfighting and Russian warfighting is simply scale as history has shown. At least the US is officially against attrocities, understands that violence towards civilians is simply counterproductive in a war and even will go as far as court martial it's own soldiers. That doesn't mean that warcrimes don't happen and cannot be just waived of individual incidents when orders haven't been followed (like when taking the disastrous tactic of using body counts as indicators of how well a war is fought in Vietnam). My Lai or the Haditha massacre in the Iraq war are examples done from the US.

On the other hand the Russians have what is called "tactical truth": lying to achieve your objectives, which is totally acceptable. It's not a denial like the Americans would do (usually referring to poor judgement of individual soldiers if civilians are killed), but categorical denial of everything and then a prolonged campaign to tarnish, ridicule and confuse everything about some event. And once there is that confusion, ignorance of the facts (that only later with more accurate historical investigation can be shown), works splendidly. The shooting down of the MH17 in southern Ukraine is an example of this. The facts are quite evident now after a long investigation, but due to ignorance it's easy to voice doubts over who was responsible of the shooting.

One can see it happening here with Bucha:

(TASS) Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov slammed the situation in the Ukrainian town of Bucha as fake attack. According to him, a fake attack was staged there, which Ukraine and the West disperse through all channels and social networks.

And there's enough of useful idiots around then to confuse the issue and go along with the idea that everything was staged. Likely there's going to be the argument that Ukrainians staged this in order to get more sanctions put at Russia and to get more aid.

The Russian doctrine of heavy use of firepower and the absolute lack of care about the Russian soldiers by the Russian armed forces also lowers moral of the soldiers creates the situation where civilian casualties are high and attrocities can happen. Starting from things like the soldiers being drunk. The rhetoric of fighting against Nazis doesn't help this or the fact that the Russian forces have sustained a lot of casualties themselves. The use of excessive firepower in urban warfare is a way to minimize own casualties, yet it brings far more destruction than different strategies would cause.

How high the death toll in Mariupol will be remains to be seen.

Might be true:

The Ukrainian military claims that Russia has begun to secretly mobilize reserves and will give priority to mobilizing people with combat experience. The Moscow authorities hope to mobilize an additional 60,000 troops.

If you're wondering how Russia can change its politics, education isn't the primary problem. — jamalrob

I think Russia can change and it isn't destined to be in a vicious circle of totalitarianism and gangster capitalism. The future isn't an extrapolation from history: even if Russia has only few short attempts of having democracy, that isn't an obstacle that it couldn't overcome.

A extremely humiliating defeat on the hands of the Japanese paved way for reforms in Czarist Russia. The outcome wasn't what happened in the West, but sometimes good things can become from bad things.

Western narrative built up the Western highway as "the big battle to siege Kiev" — boethius

That description was closer to what was happening: an attempt (that failed).

But of course now the focus should be on the present and what seems to be a withdrawal of Russian troops in the north. It actually makes sense. If the objective cannot be met (at least with these forces), it's logical to retreat back to Belarus and Russia. The Ukrainians won't follow, yet they have to leave forces to defend Kiev from a possible Russian attack. Hence Ukrainians can then send only some units to the east or south from Kyiv. Likely the focus will be now on the Donbas and Putin carving up that Novorossiya. And perhaps have the war nice over before May 9th.


...Or then it can go on longer and longer.

Seriously? You're quibbling about the correct terminology? — Isaac

Basically the situation in Kyiv and in Mariupol are quite different. One is under siege, one isn't.

Little things like that, yes, should be pointed out.

I see no way for the good people of this world to control the trajectory of their nations be it in economy, foreign policy or the environment, maybe they never had a prayer, though revolutions keep occurring 360 degrees revolutions, these. Paradoxically, the unpredictability of war has the chance to disrupt the system. It is not ideal. — FreeEmotion

I'm not sure if it is so simply that the good things happen because of good people and bad ones because of the bad.

Things can improve even in Yemen or other places. Yet they improve in their own way with economic, social and political limitations of the society in question. Improvements can happen also in Russia, but in it's own pace and only with the agency of Russians themselves. Individuals can adapt to a new culture easily, but

Just to give an example, my country ranks the highest on the "best government list". This isn't because of our leader and politicians, but because of the society.

Let me give you a telling example. When a group of Finns find themselves in a new place together, they do two things. First they build a sauna (even if it's in the middle of the Sahara). Then they create an association. Finland has a lot of associations and a lot of Finns are active in associations. The need for various associations is obvious: if a club, a village or a group of friends decide to have anything owned collectively, they need an association. If let's say it's a rowing boat that some islanders need, it could be problematic is one person owns the boat. What if he dies? His or her heirs might just sell the boat. Hence the need for associations. And with associations comes the democracy as things are decided in associations by vote and representation.

Which then gives the society a whole way to organize itself. Things like that just don't happen with legislation and policies given by the leaders.

A. If all roads are cut off save one, and that can be covered by artillery, missile and air cover, maybe supplies are disrupted enough. As has already been mentioned, few sieges in history are perfect, so certainly Russia disrupted Ukrainian supply of Kiev, and with modern weapons and surveillance maybe a modern siege doesn't literally require a circle of guard and torches all the way around the city. — boethius

I don't think all roads save one were cut off. And I think the trains have been moving also.

(the Economist, March 18th) The trains are fast becoming the arteries of Ukraine’s wartime being, moving refugees and exports west, and critical humanitarian supplies back to the centre. Tickets have in effect become voluntary, and the system runs almost entirely on emergency state subsidies, which last month cost 18bn hryvnia ($612m).

If Russia would have disrupted the supplies going into Kyiv, you bet you would have reporters telling about it.

B. The media started reporting it as a siege once the West highway was taken, so maybe the definition of siege is changing to fit modern warfare (rather than medieval and ancient warfare). — boethius

I think here media reporting doesn't use the word accurately. It's more like if the advance stops and one side bombards a city, it is called a siege when it's not technically one. Basically it's only that the city (or part of it) has become the frontline.

Everyone support their troops There should be condition of enlistment that they will only fight wars sanctioned by the UN Security council. That will show them. — FreeEmotion

Did they in Afghanistan? Nobody supported them... the leaders just siphoned money with salaries of nonexistent servicemen and proved no support for the army to defend itself in the Taliban offensive. So it was easy for the Taleban to make the deal to the ANA soldiers that if they go home, they won't kill them. Many took that offer. The Afghan way of war.

But then the mood changes. There is the expected rally-around-the-flag effect, as well as a realization that, like it or not, this is a new reality to which they will have to adapt. — SophistiCat

Thanks for the articles. Yes, I agree with you. And in the Russian way likely people will say one thing publicly and one thing in the kitchen with people they trust. When Putin veers the discourse into something equivalent of Soviet times (without the ideology), then Russians adapt.

And Russians do support they troops.

It's been now 28 years since the first exoplanet had been discovered.

Now there's 5 000 found with over 300 multi-planetary system been found.

It's going to be interesting what James Webb will find...

So we'll probably see a wave of assassinations? — frank

A lot of the assassinations have been more warnings to others especially in the intelligence services. Some like the assassination of Boris Nemtsov or Anna Politovskaya have been major political events, but just who is behind them isn't so clear. It's not that Putin writes down a list of people, it can be also some parties in the security system who want gain the appreciation of Putin by taking out these traitors as Putin has often talked about. And of course it's not anything resembling the purges of Stalin.

What Russian withdrawal looks like...

Earlier Putin had a different and somewhat more clever strategy. He firmly controlled the TV and mainstream media, but did allow small independent media to exist or have non-governmental organizations like the human rights organization Memorial to exist. These weren't any threat to the regime, but Russian officials could by clear consciousness deny accusations that Russia didn't have free speech.

But I don't think Putin cares about appearances. Once his gamble hasn't given him huge successes like the annexation of Crimea in 2014, he likely sees a threat from domestic content.

Democracy and free public discourse give a safety valve for the society: if things are really going the way a lot of people don't like, it will show far earlier before there's a huge crisis. But once you take away the safety valve and any kind of indicators showing how the steam in the boiler is developing, your only indicator will be when the boiler explodes and then it's too late.

The NY Times says that though he isn't going to end up taking over Ukraine, the war has consolidated his power in Russia. The sanctions have also done that: isolated Russia from the rest of the world in a way that Putin wants.

So it could be a success for him in ways other than militarily. — frank

Yet did Putin need to consolidate his power? I think after over 20 years he has consolidated power quite well. Of course, now after starting a large war, he can go against anybody on the basis of them being a fifth column.

Perhaps Putin will need a buzzer for the endless applause to end. Even that buzzer didn't work for one Georgian:

I've explained my views already and don't wish to just to repeat them over and over. I'll just leave those people that don't think Putin is a dictator alone with their ideas.

And Chomsky has his well defined mission to criticize US policies. That's what he sees his role to be in order to improve his country. He's not going to comment on Russia's action as it's not his obligation or even agenda. The problem is that similar commentators like him from the Russian side are silenced, in exile or dead, which Chomsky sees as to be the one's to criticize Russian policy in similar vain. Or some "intellectuals" won't listen to them.

The truth is that this war isn't going well for Russia. And I've said from the start attacking Ukraine was an error for Putin. Ukraine's willing to defend their country has surprised not only the Russians, but also the West. The fact is that things can change in eight years.


Of course, we don't know yet what the end result will be.

Be that as it may, the Russians can be argued to have functionally encircle Kiev with only 1 remaining road for supply, and the remaining south route in range of artillery.

Kiev is arguably under siege. Few sieges in history are "perfect". — boethius

Definition of siege:

a military operation in which enemy forces surround a town or building, cutting off essential supplies, with the aim of compelling those inside to surrender.

This hasn't at all happened, so what are you talking about? Quite baseless remarks.

The attempt of a siege isn't the act of successfully deploying a siege. Mariupol has been a siege.

True. Does that apply to occasionally reminding everyone what imperialist warmongering bastards America are too! — Isaac

I have no trouble in mentioning those times when they have acted as such.

When it comes to information warfare or classic "propaganda", I think both sides here (the West, Russia) stick to the truth when the truth is beneficial to them. Then it's about noticing what is left out. Hence years ago Russia Today could do a great job in objectively covering the "Occupy Wall Street" demonstrations, because why not?

Another issue is the obvious information campaign when the side is committed to a war. Once the US (or NATO) is really at war, then you see the obvious restrictions and propaganda, once the machine truly starts to work out. It's actually quite evident. Before it's just the normal bias. In wartime it's different. The US won't do the mistake it did a leave the reporters free to report what they see as in Vietnam. Or leave him to interview the soldier on the ground who can tell exactly what he thinks of the war.

Putin's Russia understands this even better. Hence you car read about how much humanitarian aid Russia has sent to the Donbass and Mariupol. After all, it's just a special military operation.

If we're having a grown up discussion, one does not occasionally interject to say "of course, Santa Claus doesn't really exist". — Isaac

Lol.

Well, in the case of this thread (and with subjects that are targets of active information warfare) it might be useful to occasionally say this. Just for clarity... :wink:

If anyone were arguing that NATO expansion were the reason for the war then you could reasonably point to the inefficiency of the technique as a counterargument. — Isaac

You just read what the Forum's official Putin troll has said here:

Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, after years of EU and NATO expansion and constant Western interference in Russia and neighboring countries like Ukraine. — Apollodorus

In any case, Russia cannot logically be expected to accept the Black Sea being turned into a NATO lake (controlled by NATO states Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, and possibly Georgia). — Apollodorus

And there would be a multitude of other references. Case closed.

I'm not accusing you of holding the Putinist line here, Isaac.

Learn history.

If you think that everything revolves around the US and it's actions and everything happens because of the US, you are not only ignorant, but also delusional.

The US and Europe spent billions on undermining communism, fought proxy wars, instigated covert regime changes, created the largest spying rings ever seen... — Isaac

And so did the Soviet Union with quite a success.

Your argument is that none of that had any effect whatsoever. I — Isaac

Wrong. What I say is that these were only minor issues that had minor effects. The reasons why the Soviet Union collapsed as it did are different.

The arms race with the US and the war in Afghanistan were in the end simply minor issues compared to the reality that a) the Soviet economy wasn't working and that b) the Union and it's citizens of diverse mix of ethnicities, cultures, and religions of an Empire long past it's prime, hence separatism prevailed. Even with those reasons, the Soviet Union could have endured longer...if Russia itself would have tried to sustain the Union as Serbia tried with Yugoslavia. But that didn't happen. On the contrary.
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Perestroika and Glasnost undermined the Soviet Empire as Gorbachev simply didn't understand that the Soviet Union was built on the Russian Empire, which would have no internal cohesion to keep intact. The British were far more successful with their Commonwealth than Russia with it's CIS.

Really, learn your history first.

I think he knew of certain risks involved in invading Ukraine, but I have doubts he would have done so had he known the extent of these sanctions, which are extreme. — Manuel

Putin doesn't care so much about sanctions. The risk was that the Ukrainians would put up a fight and that has materialized. If Putin would have assumed that the Ukrainians will fight, he would have started cautiously and more methodically and likely have had an extensive air campaign first.

I understand that Germany, Finland and many others are now increasing military or wanting to join NATO and the like, all things Russia would not have wanted. — Manuel

And this just shows how illogical and wrong it is to believe the fig-leaf of NATO expansion being the reason for this invasion. The Russo-Georgian war already stopped the NATO expansion from the US, but still left it open for the West to try to restart the relationship. If stopping NATO expansion was all that Russia wanted, that already did the trick. Attacking Ukraine just transformed NATO back to it's original form and increased the military spending and made both Sweden and Finland to start the process of joining NATO. Russian aggression is the sole reason why they are changing their security stance.

And what those that insist on the NATO expansion being the reason for the invasion totally disregard are the actions that Russia took to outmaneuver the US in Central Asia. There the US had airbases, did extensively train the local armies and had military cooperation with the states. And Russia maneuvered the US out of it's bases that it now desperately would want to have after losing Afghanistan. That is the way to truly contain US expansionism. Invading neighbors will have the totally opposite response. And naturally invading neighbors will make them prepare for aggression.

Seems that Ukraine didn't spend the last 8 years without doing anything.

Of course he cannot portray anything other than a victory of sorts. I'm curious to find out when this stops, how will the removal of sanctions proceed. — Manuel

Putin simply doesn't care. He hasn't been interested in the economy at all. If he would be, Russia would have played a totally different game in international politics. Just like, uh, China.

The sanctions aren't so easily lifted. And even so, the more obvious issue isn't the sanctions: it's the extreme risk of trading with Russia. A country that nationalizes companies, confiscates rented aircraft and simply doesn't care at all about trade relations, or looks at the relations as a way to pressure countries, isn't going to be a country that you want to trade with. Now trade with Russia is viewed as a risk, not a prospect. Radical changes can happen only if Russia experiences radical political change. Which isn't likely.

When they interviewed the local minister who is responsible for energy security, the reported asked if Finland would go off Russian oil & gas because of the war in Ukraine, the minister didn't even get her question, but responded that Finland was going off from Russian oil & gas on basis of national security. He basically admitted that the government is already anticipating that there's not going to be any hydrocarbons coming out from Russia ...perhaps as we join NATO.

In either case, it's not good, even removing the bunker talk. If they don't finish this quickly, they will suffer enormously from sanctions, which further pushes them to the brink.

We'll see. — Manuel

Putin hasn't backed down from a war before. It might be difficult for him cut it and stop and just declare victory. I think the next timeline for Putin will be the "home for X-mas"-moment of May 9th Victory Day as important. If the army could wrap it up or at least there would be something to show then, Putin might be happy.

Conflicts tend to go on for far longer than anticipated.

So by what mechanism did all their enormous efforts manage to miraculously have no effect whatsoever? — Isaac

The arms race of the Cold War is only a minor reason.

The centrally planned economy itself would be a larger reason. Or that unlike China, the Soviet Union didn't opt to try to modernize the economy with keeping political the power, but also had the policy of Glasnost, which immediately made it clear what the Union was: a remnant of an Empire with various different people.

And the real reason just why the Soviet Union collapsed so quickly in the end is really is literally there was nobody to preserve it as Russia itself was against it. Without Russia being in favour of the Soviet Union, who would be for it? Hence you got the Belovezh Accords. Learn history.

That the USSR collapsed isn't really in question. The question was the extent to which 'the west' were instrumental in making that happen. The west clearly put huge efforts into destroying them. — Isaac

I'd call that genuine Western hubris, if Americans or others think that the Soviet Union collapsed because of them. The Soviet Union c ollapsed on itself.

It's like the view that Nazi Germany fell only and solely because of the Western allies. The idea is simply wrong and shows total ignorance of the history of WW2.

The Soviet Union collapsed finally because it didn't have the backing of the Russian state itself, headed then by Yeltsin. Then Ukraine and Belarus weren't either supporting it. Simply nobody backed it in the end. And CIS didn't work later.

It would be like the US government out of the blue would attack California, Texas and New York and these states would have no other choice but leave the federation and perhaps form their own union. Guess what would happen to the US without the states of California, Texas and New York left and took other states with them? Controlling just Washington DC hardly matters for the Congress, actually.

Why are you still talking about justifications for war when I expressly said in my last post that this was not about justification for war? — Isaac

Then we simply would have to talk about the real reasons for Putin's invasion of Ukraine. Those are:

a) Putin's personal views about Ukraine and the "artificiality" of Ukraine being a sovereign state and his ideas of place in history
b) the geopolitical importance for Russia in controlling Ukraine.
c) that time was running out for Putin as Ukraine was becoming more capable of defending itself (after the 2014 partial invasion).

The simple fact is that there's nothing defensive in those reasons above for Russia to start a war. Just as in the neocon realm of invading the Middle East there actually wasn't anything defensive either... just the opportunity that 9/11 gave the neocons to go on with their wars of conquest.

They did have them. — Isaac

And the Iraqi invasion had the neocons starting from Cheney who immediately after the 9/11 attack started (to the surprise of others) talking about Saddam Hussein and invading Iraq (as recalled by the Richard Clarke). Even if everybody else knew (perhaps with the exception of the President) that Hussein didn't have anything to do with Al Qaeda.

So yes, these people who start wars have their lies. There's nothing legitimate for a justification in made up lies.

Why is that so hard to understand? — Isaac

The following. If you agree with me, why then say:

IF Russia has legitimate security concerns (just as the US does with regards to China) then tensions can be diffused diplomatically by addressing those concerns. — Isaac

This doesn't make sense. It's like when you know the whole issue of Iraqi WMD's is just a fabricated thing, you think going along with the line then would have deterred Bush and the neocons at the height of their war fever not to invade Iraq?

It's very ironic, but the existence of actual WMD's contains warmongers from starting wars. This has been seen so many time with North Korea. Many US Presidents (Clinton, Bush, Trump) likely have thought of a possibility of some pre-emptive attack on North Korea only to realize just how many South Koreans and American soldiers would die thanks to the enormous conventional artillery that the dictatorship has on the border.

In this case, Ukraine looked an easy picking for Russia. Hence talking about Putin wanting to have a "sphere of influence" is far more realistic than to talk about Russia's security concerns. Russians always hide their imperialism in defending Russia. The US tries to hide it's imperialism into spreading democracy also...besides the talk of threats.