Anyone here recommend a source for this? — Manuel

In the US, it seems to me the NYT has not succumbed to the sirens of alarmism and dramatism. These things sell well; wars make for good click bait I guess... so commercial media are naturally tempted to dramatize. But Biden is intent on not escalation and the NYT, well, I guess they love their children too so they understand the risk of going gung-ho here. That would be my sense anyway.

Another solid, professional and ethical journalist source is Reuters. It's pretty neutral from what I can see.

English Al Jazeera have a good daily dispatch at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/10/russia-ukraine-war-military-dispatch-march-10-2022
They can't be suspect of being pro-West... nor are they pro-Russian.

One of the best tracker sites for live news is Bellingcat - https://www.bellingcat.com/
These sites use tweets and other social media fed by (mostly Ukrainian) cell phone users on the ground. The bias is that you tend to see the victories more than the defeats of the Ukrainians.

I rely also on my national TV channel. They have a good team of war reporters, all female for some reason, and they do a great job. They are not "embedded", so they report from behind the frontline, on the effects on the civilians. This coverage is naturally sympathetic to the Ukrainian side but they try and maintain some professionalism.

Yes, there's some silver linings here or there, but overall this war is a disaster for all, first of course for Ukraine and Russia, and second for the rest of us. The global economy is taking a hit, during a pandemic... If it leads to less globalisation, shorter local value chains, and less European dependency on petro-states, that'll I suppose be positive, further down the road. In the meantime, food prices are sky-rocketing.

I am so, unbelievably disappointed in the responses contained in this thread. The endless dismissal of science with absolutely no support whatsoever is borderline sickening coming from a group of people that call themselves by the name of philosophy.... — Garrett Travers

What's your thesis exactly? It doesn't come across in your long OP.

But if its all just Ukrainian private business then why are you even taking part in this discussion, you're not Ukrainian? All I'm saying is that we in the west didn't ought to be encouraging Ukraine militarily or through social media, to continue the war rather than sign the peace deal available. — Isaac

I'm not worried about the impact of our discussions here on the war. We are encouraging no one. There's no audience, and nobody ever fought a war because of a tweet... You are kidding yourself if you think you can influence anything from TPF, or Twitter for that matter. Your words are not going to save Ukraine. If you want to have an influence on this conflict, go fight in it, as many westerners are doing.

Why do you support the continuation of the war?

I don't think a single person here is Ukrainian, so everyone opposing the current peace deal is doing so for reasons other than those arising from being a Ukrainian. I'm disputing those reasons. — Isaac

And yet you absolutely ignore those reasons, you don't even know what my or other posters opinion is about that, since you don't pay attention... How can you dispute something that you know nothing of???? Logic, anyone?

Nahh. More haphazard lies from Isaac, that's what we deserve here. That's our lot.

Why do we need to recover territory, why is scaring the Russian army (if we even believed in such nonsense) necessary for us when we can apparently cripple Russia with sanctions instead? — Isaac

Precision of language is key here. The situation is simply too complex for vagueness to work. We don't need to recover territory. Ukraine does, or to be more precise, its current leaders appear to think so.

As for crippling Russia with sanctions, it's an approach that has its limits. For one, it will impoverish Europe and enrich China. It might even lead to global economic recession. For two, sanctions do not typically cripple a regime as much as the people suffering under that regime. Sanctions hit the poor disproportionally, while the rich and powerful find ways around them.

The best way forward for Ukraine is to win this war on the battlefield.

The brain-rot it must take. — StreetlightX

Why are you wasting your time here, when there are all these kangaroos outside, calling for your affection?

Right. But your claim is that sanctions can cripple Russia. So why do we need Ukraine to send it's young men in after them? Sign the peace deal, cripple Russia with sanctions (not to mention arrest Putin for war crimes). Why continue the actual war? — Isaac

To recover territory and scare the Russian army for a long time, as already explained. Besides, the sanctions are hitting us as well and might benefit China. They are not a good solution long term, from a European perspective.

Is our schadenfreude at seeing Putin humiliated worth hundreds of Ukrainian lives? — Isaac

:roll: It's not you and me fighting there, it's them. And they fight for their own reasons. Why do you need to confuse yourself all the time like this, to muddle the water, to spit and disparage so much? Is it because you have in fact no point? Is the spitting standing in for absent meaning and sense? Must you spit because you have nothing to say?

To help protect Poland, I suppose.

What I'm not seeing is why anyone outside of Ukraine should be encouraging the pursuit of those objectives at the expense of people's lives. — Isaac

Europeans are afraid of Putin too. They see him as unreliable, corrupt, ultra-violent and manipulative. They can see that under his rule there is no hope for democracy in Russia. And thus there is an objective need, from EU residents perspective, to scare Putin into a less bellicose posture. Putin needs to know that he can lose wars, and he needs to know how it feels, to internalize it, to learn his lesson.

Another thing is: as long as Russia controls so much of the gas trade to Central Europe, Germany and even Italy, they have a huge lever that they can use against us. They also fund their whole army and all these new weapons with the money we pay for their gas. So it is in Europe's long term interest to diversify its gas suppliers. Hence it is vital to European long term, strategic interest that Ukraine takes back Crimea.

So why's it got a missile base in Poland? — Isaac

Because Poland is part of NATO, of course.

So what 6 and a half million strong military are America legitimately concerned about? — Isaac

No objective security concern would justify the current bloated US military. It is more a question of how the militaro-industrial complex is phagocytating the US budget.

My sense is that the Ukraininans want to punish the Russian army as hard as they can, so that they will never even dream of attacking Ukraine again. They want fear to change camp, and so far these damn Cosaks are succeeding.

They also would want Crimea back. Otherwise they will always be encircled and will lose on the opportunity to compete with Russia on the gas market, since the known petroleum and gas deposits are off the coast of Crimea. Crimea is strategic. Donbass doesn't matter as much.

Then there is the issue of war reparations: how much should Russia pay for the reconstruction of what they destroyed? (assuming Russia is not back to economic stone age in 6 months).

Seems like a contradiction to me - but perhaps I simply lack the 'Street Wisdom'. Maybe Olivier5 or @ssu could patiently explain to one so unwise in the ways of the street how sanctions might cripple Russia now, but would miraculously have no effect whatsoever if it intervened in an independent Donetsk and Luhansk with too heavy a hand? — Isaac

Question unclear, please rephrase. Especially the last part. Sanctions will cripple Russia whether or not they murder or otherwise brutalize folks in Donbass.

Military types say you need three or four attackers for every defender, so it does make a huge difference.

https://youtu.be/If61baWF4GE

? What seems like a contradiction to you, does not seem like a contradiction to others. — Isaac

All post truth blah is exactly why you're so confused all the time. That and a lack of street wisdom and exposure to the world. But I suspect you enjoy the confusion, otherwise you wouldn't wallow in it.

It IS of course about money.

You were on the one hand saying the Ukrainians stood a good chance of victory against the Russian military and on the other saying that the Russian military were so strong no-one would ever present a legitimate threat to them. The same military. So which is it. Are they so strong no-one presents a legitimate threat, or are they so weak the Ukrainians have a good chance of defeating them outright? — Isaac

Because defense is much easier than attack.

Adam off of the internet say "Fox news aren't trustworthy" and he's thinking "hey, hang on - if random people of the internet think it's not trustworthy, then maybe I ought to take a step back...". Explain the psychology you imagine going on there. — Isaac

You reach out to him, or you don't, but I think it is worth trying. It is also worth pointing put that you cannot triangulate lies into truth, that one should start with a selection of trustworthy souces. Some folks think that if you average CNN and FOX you get something close to the truth but that is baloney. The average of two lies is another lie.

And if I happen to accept Fox News as reference material? — Isaac

They contradict themselves constantly, so that wouldn't work very well for you. Incidentally, contradictions are a telltale sign of a lot of lying being done.

, all you're doing is giving me the list of sources you trust. Why would I trust the sources you trust. I don't know you. — Isaac

Do you have good reasons to mistrust them? You seem to live in paranoia, I feel sorry for you.

In the end, you are right that if you rely only on secondary sources, what I describe is impossible to do well. One needs an exposure to events, a capacity to enquire by oneself, on the ground. Only then can one establish a few beacons of truth in the media, by comparing one's direct primary observations with what is reported about it. Armchair pundits are easier to fool than folks with a lot of field experience.

How on earth did you get that from what I wrote? — Isaac

Don't get hysterical quite yet, I was just asking for clarification.

no-one is going to knowingly get their information from a liar, so there's no point saying 'make sure your source isn't a liar' as a piece of advice. — Isaac

I think it is good advice to point out that certain sources are untruthful, such as FOX for instance. Someone who generally trusts FOX, unwittingly, could be made a little more cautious if you alert him, and even ultimately could switch to a (hopefully better) set of sources. Even someone ideologically riveted to FOX might one day realize that his trust included a lot of bad faith, that he always knew deep down that much of what they say was BS pulled out of their ideological arse but that he turned a blind eye to it, or even relayed it because it had the advantage of pissing off some liberals.

The switch from bad faith argumentation to good faith realization can be liberating.

How am I going to establish whether "John is a liar" is true? — Isaac

How do you spot a liar, usually? It's not rocket science, just check some verifiable facts mentioned in the source against the reference material you happen to accept. Wikipedia, British Encyclopedia, BBC, whatever you happen to hold as being of good general quality. Another point of comparison is your own personal experience if you have some direct exposure to a newsworthy event now and then. If you find a lot of discrepancy between a news source and your reference sources or personal experience, it's a sign there might be a problem.

Now, it might be that one of your reference source was in fact incorrect, say it could be that the BBC for instance got something wrong while our suspected liar was in fact correct. Check against the Guardian, le Monde, El Pais, Die Zeit, Aljazeera... (not too disreputable sources) and look for differences All these generally reputable sources cannot be wrong all at the same time.

If you can find me a single person who admittedly gets their information from non-trustworthy sources, bad quality data or journalists who make it their duty to lie your comment might have been something other than vapid condescending bullshit. — Isaac

Let me get this straight: you think nobody ever lies, or that journalists never consciously lie in their reporting, or what? What is the status of 'lying' in your ontology? Does it not exist, as a behavior?

What you describe is called triangulating information sources. It's an important skill, but like any process for information management (tabulating, analysis, stats etc ) it is subject to the following cardinal rule: Garbage in, garbage out. If your data is BS, your analysis will be BS, no matter how fine your analysis skills.

You cannot triangulate three lies to find the truth.

Therefore, the correct procedure comes from selecting generally trustworthy sources, good quality sources of data, journalists who don't make it their duty to lie to their audience but rather look for the truth and say it as they see it, with of course some perspectives and biases as we all have but genuine, and then -- only then -- triangulating these good quality sources to check for possible biases.

As a Frenchman, I know very little about marsupials, just like as an Australian, you probably know very little about Europe. But since it doesn't stop you from giving us some ponderous advice on how to manage ourselves, I have some very French advice to offer on how to control your population of kangaroos, while at the same time drastically reducing demographic growth down under... :naughty:

Has the quote function broken? — Isaac

(sic)

It doesn't matter if I quote you or not, because your logic is as broken as your grammar. You cannot perceive your own contradictions, you 'blank'. E.g. I recently pointed at one and you ignored it. I suspect simply because you were fundamentally unable to process the info I provided to you.

Everything starts with media knowledge, — Christoffer

Yes, and many English-speaking media -- such as FAUX -- have been manipulated for decades. Hence Brexit, Trump, and other bizarro anglo stuff. Their public is misinformed, dumbed-down by Murdock and co.

At a certain point, the contradictions, liberal backed Jewish Neo-Nazis, an ethnicity ethnically cleansing itself, etc. collapse under their own weight. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Note that @Isaac, @StreetlightX and others are constantly contradicting themselves, but it doesn't actually matter to them because they are simply not logical enough to notice and care about logic.

It is supposed to be very popular in the United States. Let's see if it going to be banned like RT and Sputnik. — FreeEmotion

FAUX News is a lie machine, a dumbing-down machine. Watching them will make you stupid.

So you have nothing to say at the moment other than clichés. Did that ever stop you before?

So when do you plan to start, Mr Magpie?

that French piece of smelly cheese in power, — EugeneW

You've been reported for racism.

Right now I think Russians are meddling in internal Ukrainian affairs far more than your "West".

Of course, the petro-connection also implies that Ukraine (and Europe) needs Crimea back. Ukraine without Crimea is not nearly as useful if the idea is to break Russia's dominant position as an exporter of gaz to Europe.

It's to take out the log you got in there.

I agree with ↪Olivier5 here. — Isaac

I hope that wasn't too painful. :-)

Haven't you heard? This is not a thread about the West, nor about who is the worse baddy.

In any case, I am the worse baddy. Worse than Putin and Trump combined. Now that's settled!...

But to understand Russia's motivation is important in order to better counter them, just as understanding the US motivation in Iraq was important to better counter them.

What about your whataboutism?

Thank you for this excellent video. I checked the main bit: that the black sea around Crimea has much hydrocarbon resources, and it it true. Therefore it does stand to reason that Russia is trying to stop Ukraine from becoming a competitor in the oil and gaz trade to Europe.

Had Ukraine been allowed to replace Russia as the main gaz supplier of Europe, Russia would have lost a humongous revenue, which they use to build their army...

Can we avoid reproducing blatant lies from FAUX News here? Please? It's the Pravda in English. It's like spreading feces all over TPF. Have some decency. Thank you.

I agree. He's got enough of a fight already.

The US let Hitler do whatever he wanted, though.

Without a NATO membership, Finland would be left alone to fight an hypothetical invader. Just like Ukraine today will have to fight all by itself. NATO's doors are open but they do exist (the doors). I.e. it does have a meaning, who is in and who is out.