Putin wants to rebuild Russia as a great power, NOT the Soviet Union. Ukraine was already part of Russia long before the Soviets came on the scene. — Apollodorus

He wants to reconstruct the pre-Soviet Russian Empire. He sees the Russian Revolution as an interruption in that project. — jamalrob

It's good that people find here some agreement. Of course some view that he (Putin) is entitled for this, while others do not. But the fact is, this is not just about NATO enlargement. Hopefully some would understand that.

But what really has happened is the World has changed now far more than what happened in 9/11.

The Second Cold War is a reality. No "resets" happening anymore. People will start thinking about nuclear weapons again.

And the blissful trust in globalization has collapsed. Western countries will understand that they cannot rely on Russia (or China), when it comes to their strategic resources, at least. Western Europe cannot rely on Russia fossil fuels or Chinese cheap labour. Security of supply will be one thing.

He wants to reconstruct the pre-Soviet Russian Empire. He sees the Russian Revolution as an interruption of that project. — jamalrob

So Finland is next?

The Second Cold War is a reality. No "resets" happening anymore. People will start thinking about nuclear weapons again. — ssu

It's only a reality in so far as we let it happen. I think that's the point of what's going on right now.

Reading what you wrote, seems to me I heard Putin say that it was the Bolsheviks who granted 'independence' to provinces of the old tsarist empire. My impression is that the Soviet Republics weren't all that independent of centralized control.

So, how much difference would it make (outside of local boundary disputes) whether the soviet empire or the tsarist empire were reconstructed?

Yes, I don’t get the Nazi angle. But upon briefly looking into it, Russia and pro-Russia forces have been using antifascist rhetoric and evoking the word “genocide” against the “Orange Junta” since Poroshenko. Here’s a good article on it. Putin using the same rhetoric (among many other things left unreported) to justify his advance could be the direct result of this species of belief and propaganda.

I just wanted to hear a clear condemnation of the coming bloodshed. That's all. — frank

:up:

So, how much difference would it make (outside of local boundary disputes) whether the soviet empire or the tsarist empire were reconstructed? — Bitter Crank

As I've said before Putin doesn't want to restore the Soviet Union. He's said that himself many times:

People often quote his statement “the demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century”. But it bears pointing out that he enlarged on it later, saying: “Anyone who doesn’t regret the passing of the Soviet Union has no heart. Anyone who wants it restored has no brains.”

Understanding Putin’s narrative about Ukraine is the master key to this crisis - The Guardian

Had he wanted to "reconstruct the USSR", he would have done so long ago. The fact is Russia has always had a strong government. As the largest country in the world, Russia obviously needs some form of central authority.

Plus, how would Biden react if Texas decided to become independent and join Mexico or Spain?

Plus, how would Biden react if Texas decided to become independent and join Mexico or Spain? — Apollodorus

Some days I think that would be unfortunate, and other days I think "Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out".

E Pluribus Unum has worked, and not worked, in the US. There are several serious books suggesting that we might be better of with less "pluribus". One is The Nine Nations of North America by Joel Garreau. Another author suggested a more complicated map than Gauueau, grouping New England and Great Lakes states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and a few other scattered pieces) as Yankeedom--a diverse geographical area (all fall along the northern tier of states) but all have social cultures descended from the Puritan foundation of New England.

It seems entirely plausible that Moldova and the pacific coastal regions of Russia might not have much in common, similarly, Kazakhs and Baltic cultures are pretty dissimilar.

:up: That's one way of looking at it. Unfortunately, Russia has too many enemies to afford to lose any more territory or influence. It doesn't make sense for the largest country in the world to be subordinated to Europe or America.

So, for my part, I think Russia, Europe, and America should be separate and independent powers without any of them interfering in the others' business ....

Yes, I don’t get the Nazi angle. But upon briefly looking into it, Russia and pro-Russia forces have been using antifascist rhetoric and evoking “genocide” against the “Orange Junta” since Poroshenko. Here’s a good article on it. Putin using the same rhetoric (among many other things left unreported) to justify his advance the direct result of this species of belief and propaganda. — NOS4A2

Antifascism is something from the Soviet vocabulary.

Simple fact is that Russia had it's Great Patriotic War against Hitler, so the idea of fighting Nazis is much appreciated in Russia. In a war you dehumanize the enemy. If Ukrainians are brothers, then there have to be someone that have to be the enemy: the Nazis! If Putin targets the Baltic States and NATO unity, you will surely read from the Putinist what kind of closet-Nazis the Baltic people are. Or the Finns. Or the Swedes. Because why would you help a bunch of Nazis, when your grandfathers or great grandfathers fought them also?

Democracy is dying. Democracy and the globalized free market have failed a lot of people - at least that's the narrative people are starting to believe.

If trump makes a comeback it's game over.

Western Europe may be a last bastion...

It seems entirely plausible that Moldova and the pacific coastal regions of Russia might not have much in common, similarly, Kazakhs and Baltic cultures are pretty dissimilar. — Bitter Crank

Correct. But then America has people of European, Native American, African, Latin American descent, etc., each group with their own culture.

As for Russia, the very fact that all those different ethnic groups have been able to largely preserve their own culture, religion, and language down the centuries, shows that Russia isn't quite as repressive as sometimes assumed in the West. Even under "dictatorial" leaders like Putin, as long as you don't engage in any subversive activities against the state, you can get on with your life as in any Western country.

So Finland is next? — frank

I don't think so. Not at least in the same way.

He hasn't written a long rambling text about how Finland is an artificial country and actually it would be best for everybody that it would be part of Russia. But what is certain that he doesn't want Finland (or Sweden) to join NATO.

But what is obvious is he would want to control over the doings of Finland. I'll give examples: Like that the SVR chief in Helsinki would give merely as a cordial suggestion, a speech written by the SVR, for Finland to give at the UN general meeting. And that the Finnish President would then give the speech word for word at the UN.

Or then that due to aggressive behavior of the US, Finland (and Sweden) would abstain from any military training with NATO.

And then perhaps that Finland would have some military exercises with Russia (something that the Soviets asked, but Finns declined).

And then perhaps that Russia would partly take care of our air defense (which again the Soviets asked, and to which the Finns didn't give an answer and no Russian SAMs were deployed to Finland).

That kind of control Putin surely would want from us.

It's like the 70's show!

It's telling that there are there are protests against the war in Russia. Not much, but something.

(Washington Post)MOSCOW — Thousands of people protested President Vladimir Putin’s attacks on Ukraine in cities across Russia on Thursday, a striking show of anger in a nation where spontaneous mass demonstrations are illegal and protesters can face fines and jail.

More than 1,700 people were arrested in at least 47 cities across the nation, according to rights group OVD-Info.

Even Russia Today confirmed the protests:

Anti-war slogans filled central Moscow and Saint Petersburg streets on Thursday, as hundreds took to protest against the ongoing Russian military operation in Ukraine. Police in the Russian capital have said they temporarily detained 600 people.

Yet what is more ominous to Putin isn't that there aren't great enthusiasm for the war. If he has been methodically using the Stalinist playbook on how to attack, the Russians seem not to be there. After all, they were just a while ago said that Russia wouldn't invade and that all was just hype from the US. At least in 2014 Russians did openly use the ribbon of St George and the annexation was popular with Russians. Seems that it isn't now. Putin has gotten old. And perhaps total power has corrupted him totally and he has lost his touch to the country.

I hope starting this war will be the start of the downfall of Putin.

If trump makes a comeback it's game over. — Changeling

It might be "game over", and Trump never faded into the sewage lagoon where he had been consigned; he keeps resurfacing.

Stephen Marche's The Next Civil War outlines possible ways the United States could start coming apart--not just from polarization, but from people diverging from common interests; white supremacists infiltrating into the police (and military); economic advancement by marginalized groups, and so on, That last -- marginalized groups getting ahead economically -- enflames the dominant demographic more than their own decreased economic well being.

So from several causes, the game might be coming to an end.

I heard Putin say that it was the Bolsheviks who granted 'independence' to provinces of the old tsarist empire. My impression is that the Soviet Republics weren't all that independent of centralized control. — Bitter Crank

What Putin was trying to say is that territories like Ukraine had been part of Russia under the czars and only became "countries", i.e., Soviet Republics under the Bolsheviks.

After the February Revolution in 1917 the People's Republic of Ukraine was proclaimed as part of the Russian Republic.

In 1918 the Bolsheviks who were still consolidating their power, recognized Ukraine as "independent" but the territory was divided between Russia, Poland, and Romania.

After a civil war, the Soviet part of Ukraine, which was the bulk of "Ukrainian" territory, was renamed Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, a.k.a. Soviet Ukraine, and became part of the USSR in 1922 which it remained until 1991.

The "independence", of course, was more administrative than political, and after the Bolsheviks had consolidated their power, especially under Stalin, it was largely theoretical.

So, from a historical Russian perspective, and especially in the eyes of the older Russian generations like Putin, the idea of Ukraine as a separate country sounds a bit odd. Even the name "Ukraine" itself is derived from the Slavic name for "country" or "borderland" and is not the name of an ethnic group:

Name of Ukraine - Wikipedia

"country" or "borderland" — Apollodorus

In the past (like... 40 years ago) people often used 'the' when referencing--'the Ukraine'.

Fox News says "The Ukraine” was previously used as a shortened version of “the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic,” and therefore saying “the Ukraine” refers to a time that many Ukrainians would rather not reference."

I always assume Fox News is lying, so maybe it developed from the name being perceived more as a common noun than a proper noun, like 'the' midwest.

It's not 'The' Ukraine - poignant first-person account of why.

Also a very sobering article on why Russia is considerably more economically resilient than many of the countries that are sanctioning it.

Who knew that almost 90 per cent of Europe’s imports of rapeseed oil comes from Ukraine, or Spain’s jamon iberico depends on grain feed from the black earth belt of the Ukrainian steppe? Ukraine turns Putin’s neo-Tsarist empire into the Saudi Arabia of food, controlling 30 per cent of global wheat exports and 20 per cent of corn exports.

It is not just Brent crude oil that has spiked violently, hitting an eight-year high of $US102. Aluminium smashed all records this morning. Chicago wheat futures have hit $US9.32 a bushel, the highest since the hunger riots before the Arab Spring. ...

Russia is sitting on $US635 billion ($887 billion) of foreign exchange reserves. It has a national debt of 18 per cent of GDP, one of the lowest in the world. It has a fiscal surplus and does not rely heavily on foreign investors to finance the state. This renders US sanctions against new issuance of sovereign bonds a mere nuisance.

The Kremlin is enjoying a windfall gain from commodities. Benchmark gas futures contracts (TTF) for March have hit extreme levels of €120 MWh. Russia is earning $US700 million a day from sales of oil to Europe and to the US, which needs heavy Urals crude to replace sulphurous Venezuelan barrels for its refineries.

The harsh truth is that Europe would spiral into crisis within weeks if flows of Russian gas were cut off - by either side. The short-term loss of revenue for the Kremlin would be a small fraction of Russian gold, euro, and dollar reserves. There is no symmetry in this. Whatever the rhetoric, energy business as usual will proceed.

Sacrificed Ukraine? You think sacrificing Ukraine and Putin would be fine. And what is so wrong to respect the borders of sovereign states that earlier Russia has accepted? I can assure you, the next thing would be to demand NATO to basically end the agreement with a huge number of it's current members because Putin has already demanded it! — ssu

I don't know why you're pretending you cannot tell the difference to aspirant members bordering Russia and existing members.

Or the fact that over asking is a rather transparent negotiation tactic.

Isaac is here to back him up: — SophistiCat

Well. This is what political debate renders down to in the Twitter generation. It's pathetic. Either toe the line on the mainstream narrative or fall into the enemy camp. These are the only two options as each discussion polarises into two easy-to-digest, media-friendly camps and everyone falls into line accordingly. I'm not on board with the 'stop Putin at all costs' message, so I must agree with everything Putin says and does - these are the only two options available to me.

Have reservations about the role of big Pharma in the Covid response? You must be like Alex Jones and frightened it's going to turn you into a 5G transmitter - these are the only two options available to you. Have concerns about women only spaces? You must be transphobic right-winger - these are the only two options available to you.

Of course - anything else would involve people actually having to think, read, and develop an opinion of their own rather than pick one of the two options available at the local Walmart.

Let me get this straight: for you it doesn't matter that already 14000 have been killed in a limited war that now has been changed to unlimited conventional war, where it's totally possible that even nuclear weapons could be used (and likely there's a bigger death toll). That doesn't mean anything?

Is it really EXACTLY the same thing that some George Soros finances some pro-Western group which later either succeeds or fails in elections? Really no difference? — ssu

I'm not sure what the pre-existing war's got do with it, but yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. Pro-Western imperialist agendas cause more death and misery than this war will - ten times over. That's not to say (as if I should have to even spell this out) that Putin is going to put a stop to all that death and misery, it is - as my comments recently have almost exclusively been - to say that this isn't the story its painted as.

Russia are not a crazy one-off Marvel bad guy which sprung out of nowhere. The US are not white knights who are going to come in on their chargers and save the world, The EU are not wise strategists wielding sanctions like a parent might wield threats of an early bed. Ukraine is not the poor innocent bystander caught between the noble West and the evil East, wanting only it's freedom. The solutions are not careful military strategy and paternalistic sanctions planned by the wise Philosopher kings of the West vs a descent into World War 3

This is an inevitable conflict, caused as much by Western provocation and puppet-mastery as it is by Russian lunacy and stubbornness.

The solutions are a Pro-Russian proxy government painting a facade of empire over a crumbling wreck, or a Pro-Western government indebted to the hilt, acting as nothing but a supply of land and bodies for the next Amazon warehouse. Or some mess in between.

But it's clear that nuance has been forced out of this debate too.

Let's assume this is all true. Presumably it's still in our favour if our side "wins". Whatever the fuck that means in this conflict.

Pizdets. :mask:


So, at least intellectually, all one can do is pick a (metanarrative) poison – Euro-American fentanyl or Russian novichok?

:up:

I'm surprised at how many swallow Putin's propaganda machine. Many seem to uncritically eat up his and his machine's words as actual valid perspectives during this conflict. It's insane.

People always need to be critical of media, politicians and also regular people on any topic, at any time, and people need to know how to be critical. Overskepticism tend to happen when people don't have the correct mindset for critical thinking, or they don't have any methods of figuring out if something is true or not, which leads to bias as the only guiding thought ends up being the one that "feels best". Critical thinking requires a reviewing methodology detached from ideology or preferences. And if skepticism exists without any kind of thought behind it, it becomes conspiracy theory.

And if that is the standard baseline of critical thinking, it requires even more effort when listening to a nation that is pathologically lying and producing propaganda as a factory. The Russian propaganda machine is one of the most extreme in the world and it requires extreme levels of scrutiny in order to be used as a valid point of view for an analysis of the conflict.

Is Putin Mad?

In the past (like... 40 years ago) people often used 'the' when referencing--'the Ukraine'. — Bitter Crank

Obviously, the definite article “the” does not exist in Ukrainian or Russian. My guess is that English “the Ukraine” comes from German “die Ukraine” or French “la Ukraine”.

But the word does seem to be derived from “land” or “borderland”:

1651 Ukrain, 1671 Ukraine, 1688 Ucrania, Ukrania, 1762 Ocraine. Adaptation of Polish Ukraina, Russian Украи́на (Ukraína), or Ukrainian Украї́на (Ukrajína), from the specific use, originally meaning “borderland”, “marches” or “insideland”. From Old East Slavic украина (ukraina), from у (u, “at”) + краи (krai, “edge”), or край (kraj, “land”).

Ukraine - Wiktionary

It follows that “Ukraine” is not derived from the name of an ethnic group. In contrast, “Russia”, for example, comes from an actual people, the “Rus” who were a Slavic or Nordic group.

From the late 9th to the mid-13th century, the Rus formed “Rus-land” a.k.a. Kievan Rus that comprised various ethnic groups. This “Rus-land” or “Land of the Rus” (роусьскаѧ землѧ, rusĭskaę zemlę), subsequently split into Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine.

So, Putin isn’t quite as unreasonable as it may seem to non-Russians, when he refuses to accept the legitimacy of states literally created by the Bolsheviks, and even then more theoretically than practically.

Obviously, all these issues that arose from post-Soviet Ukrainian independence, should have been sorted there and then, in 1991. A country can become independent in certain circumstances, but it should not do so without regard to its neighbors.

The problem of the Black Sea and the Soviet Naval Force is highly important to both Ukraine and Russia, and should perhaps have been resolved through some kind of international arbitration.

In any case, NATO already has Turkey, Bulgaria, and Romania occupying the Black Sea coast. Adding Ukraine to it, especially Crimea, would turn the Black Sea into a virtual NATO lake and potentially block Russian access to the Mediterranean. Surely, this can’t be right or fair on Russia?

P.S. Note how NATO and its propaganda operatives are trying to sweep the Black Sea issue under the carpet .... :smile:

This is extremely important and brave, given the consequences involved.

Perhaps this may limit the scope and duration of this war. After all, massive sanctions only hurt the general population, not the oligarchs.

This decision seems to be backfiring.

I don't know why you're pretending you cannot tell the difference to aspirant members bordering Russia and existing members.

Or the fact that over asking is a rather transparent negotiation tactic. — Benkei

Benkei, the demands that Putin has made for NATO do effect existing NATO members. Not only aspirant members. Actually, the only "aspirant" members are Ukraine and Georgia now I guess.

Russia and all NATO states that were members in May 1997, before the first eastern European countries were invited to join the alliance, shouldn’t “deploy military forces and weaponry on the territory of any of the other States in Europe” that were not already in place on that date, according to one of the treaties published Friday by the Foreign Ministry in Moscow.

This means that NATO countries like US, Germany, UK, the Netherlands, cannot exercise in Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary or in 11 other member states.

A mutual defense pack that cannot train inside it's own borders basically cripples NATO. But if you think that appeasement would somehow work, Putin simply would push as long until he can. After all, he wants the eradication of the whole NATO. And in his war speech he was quite clear who he sees as the enemy:

Of course, the question is not about NATO itself. It merely serves as a tool of US foreign policy.

Merely a tool of US sidelines totally every other member in NATO, who actually have felt that it has been a good tool for their own security policy.

I think it would be informative to read what Putin actually has said: Putin's speech 24.2.2022

or delusional…