Wake me up when you have sources to back up your opinions. — apokrisis
War is insanity. Each side accusing the other of insanity is part of the war. Can one speak of insanity sanely? — unenlightened
What's happening here is just lazy partisanship in place of debate — Isaac
Pan-Slavism, an ideal of unity of all Slavic Orthodox Christian nations, gained popularity in the mid- to late 19th century. One of its major ideologists was Nikolay Danilevsky. Pan-Slavism was fueled by and it was also the fuel for Russia's numerous wars against the Ottoman Empire, which Russia waged with the goal of liberating Orthodox nationalities, such as the Bulgarians, the Romanians, the Serbs and the Greeks, from Muslim rule. The final goal was Constantinople; the Russian Empire still considered itself the "Third Rome" and it believed that its duty required it to succeed the "Second Rome", which was conquered by the Ottoman Empire.[4] Pan-Slavism also played a key role in Russia's entry into World War I, since the 1914 war against Serbia by Austria-Hungary triggered Russia's response.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_nationalism
According to Michael Hirsh, a senior correspondent at Foreign Policy:
Graham and other Russia experts said it is a mistake to view Putin merely as an angry former KGB apparatchik upset at the fall of the Soviet Union and NATO’s encroachment after the Cold War, as he is often portrayed by Western commentators. Putin, himself, made this clear in his Feb. 21 speech, when he disavowed the Soviet legacy, inveighing against the mistakes made by former leaders Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin to grant Ukraine even partial autonomy. ... Putin is rather a messianic Russian nationalist and Eurasianist whose constant invocation of history going back to Kievan Rus, however specious, is the best explanation for his view that Ukraine must be part of Russia’s sphere of influence, experts say. In his essay last July, Putin even suggested that the formation of a separate, democratic Ukrainian nation “is comparable in its consequences to the use of weapons of mass destruction against us.”
If you believe these are fictions, then get busy with the debunking. — apokrisis
If you take all the people who have done their military service in the last five years, you are talking roughly about two million men (and some women). Yet just to retrain and arm 300 000 is not at all easy thing for Russia. Russia has not had any kind of system for reservists and for their refresher training. Hence it's going to take some time.people with no military training are being drafted. There was an interview on TV last night. Whatever Putin has in mind, it doesn't seem to be peace. — jorndoe
The fact is Putin actually says it, even if we can debate how much he really believes it. — apokrisis
The fact is that the view is held and shared as justification for the current actions. — apokrisis
So some people think Russia's foreign policy is driven by imperialist expansionism. — Isaac
The question was why you want to paint those that do as prophets and those that don't as lunatics. — Isaac
It's far too annoying for many that sometimes the US President and elite can utter something that is totally right and justified. As if that makes somehow the criticism about other issues less valuable.So why are posters here wanting to deny it? — apokrisis
The ultimate bad actor in this whole situation is the US, and anyone who looks at Russia being an active 'bad guy' with Western powers merely 'reacting' to Russian agression has no fucking idea what they are talking about. — Streetlight
Why Vladimir Putin is raising the stakes in Ukraine war
Russian president’s move underscores his shrinking room for manoeuvre at home and on the battlefield
As he addressed the nation on Wednesday morning to announce a “partial mobilisation” of 300,000 reservists, president Vladimir Putin framed Russia’s war in Ukraine in stark, existential terms.
The nation was defending itself against a west that wanted to “weaken, divide and destroy Russia” and it was prepared to use nuclear weapons in response.
The apocalyptic threats are intended to coerce Ukraine and its western allies to accept Russia’s gains in the conflict. The hasty staging of “referendums” in occupied areas this weekend is supposed to set a line that Ukraine and the west must not cross.
By in effect annexing large parts of southern and eastern Ukraine, Putin wants to dissuade Kyiv and its western allies from attacking what the Kremlin now considers “Russian territory” — laying the groundwork for full mobilisation or even nuclear conflict if they persist.
Putin’s escalation is a gamble that underscores his shrinking room for manoeuvre on the battlefield in Ukraine and domestically in Russia.
“The whole world should be praying for Russia’s victory, because there are only two ways this can end: either Russia wins, or a nuclear apocalypse,” Konstantin Malofeyev, a nationalist Russian tycoon, said in an interview.
“If we don’t win, we will have to use nuclear weapons, because we can’t lose,” Malofeyev added. “Does anyone really think Russia will accept defeat and not use its nuclear arsenal?”
On the defensive after losing thousands of square kilometres of territory to Ukraine in recent weeks, Wednesday’s announcement is an attempt to change the calculus at a time when Moscow has even fewer options, said Rob Lee, a fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.
A successful Ukrainian counter-offensive this month has not only pushed it out of the Kharkiv region in north-eastern Ukraine but is also now threatening territories Russia seized in the Donbas — the eastern industrial heartland whose “liberation” Putin has defined as the main goal of the war.
“If they start losing territory that they just gained there, it raises all sorts of questions and there’s no way they can easily brush it off. It quite clearly is a military and political failure if that happens,” Lee said.
By declaring these areas Russian territory, Putin is probably hoping he can halt Ukraine’s advance and deter the west’s appetite for sending more weapons, because it would demonstrate that “any offensive here by Ukrainian forces or by Nato weapons will get interpreted as an attack on Russian territory”, Lee said.
Western leaders have instead condemned the referendums, reiterated their support for Ukraine’s attempts to recapture its territory and restated their willingness to provide Kyiv with high-tech weapons.
Russia’s gamble is unlikely to pay off, said Samuel Charap, a senior political scientist at the Rand Corporation. “I don’t think Putin fully internalises the consequences of this,” he said. “What happens when Ukraine ‘occupies’ ‘Russian territory’? Then the next step is declaring war if Ukraine retakes it.”
Many analysts are also sceptical that a partial mobilisation will have a rapid impact on the battlefield, because it could take several months to train reservists and to create new units with commanders and logistical support.
Seven months since Putin first sent troops into Ukraine, Russia’s heavy losses put its forces at a manpower disadvantage, particularly in terms of well-trained soldiers. Moscow originally deployed about 180,000 troops for its invasion of Ukraine, according to western estimates.
Defence minister Sergei Shoigu said only 5,937 Russian soldiers had died in the conflict — less than a tenth of the casualties Moscow claims were suffered by Ukraine. The US said in August that Russia had suffered “probably . . . 70,000 or 80,000” killed and wounded since February.
The Russian reserve has a notional 2mn former conscripts and contract soldiers, according to the Institute for the Study of War, but few are actively trained or considered ready to fight.
A 2019 Rand study estimated Russia only had 4,000 to 5,000 reservists in the western sense of receiving regular monthly and annual training, although in 2021 it launched an initiative to create a standing reserve force.
“If this is meant to scare Ukraine and the west into capitulating, it’s not going to work. When it fails, Putin will have even worse choices,” Charap said.
But even as Russia escalated its stand-off against the west, the Kremlin attempted to reassure Russians that life would mostly go on as normal.
In a pre-recorded statement aired immediately after Putin’s speech, Shoigu said Russia would only call up reserves, rather than deploy the conscript army, and stressed that students would be exempt.
Throughout the invasion, Moscow has avoided introducing martial law or conscripting Russians into the armed forces and insisted on calling it a “special military operation” — a term evoking far-off conflicts rather than stirring Russians’ memories of brutal wars.
The attempt to project calm for the domestic audience — presenting the war as a necessary but distant battle — has been successful so far.
“Over the past six months, an adaptation has taken place to the new conditions, people calmed down,” said Denis Volkov, director of the Levada Center, an independent pollster in Moscow. Spending increased, and polls showed Russians increasingly saying that the situation was developing in the right direction.
But the announcement of even a partial mobilisation brings the war closer to home. “I think if the Kremlin could have avoided it, it would have,” Volkov said. “But the conflict has its own logic, and it has led them to take an unpopular decision.”
Some Russians have voted with their feet: flights to Yerevan and Istanbul, two of the few available destinations after western countries closed off their airspace to Russia, were sold out within minutes of Putin’s announcement.
The effect on public sentiment will be gradual, however, said Tatiana Stanovaya, founder of political consultancy R.Politik.
“Mobilisation will be gradually expanded. Society will slowly become irritated and indignant — do not expect mass protests, but rather waves of indignation,” she said. “This is the erosion of Putin’s power in its purest form.”
Germany is ready to take in Russian deserters, ministers signalled Thursday, amid reports of people fleeing the partial mobilization ordered by President Vladimir Putin.
"Deserters threatened with serious repression can as a rule obtain international protection in Germany," Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said, according to excerpts from an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper.
"Anyone who courageously opposes Putin's regime and thereby falls into great danger, can file for asylum on grounds of political persecution," she said.
Separately, Justice Minister Marco Buschmann tweeted using the hashtag "partial mobilization" that "apparently, many Russians are leaving their homeland -- anyone who hates Putin's path and loves liberal democracy is welcome in Germany".
Jesus yourself, Benkei!It contradicts the facts and still you maintain it by equivocating the acquiescence to existing power by a population that has barely any agency, with support.
Jesus. — Benkei
President Vladimir Putin has compared himself to Peter the Great, saying he shares the 18th-century czar's goal of returning "Russian lands" to a greater empire.
Speaking after visiting an exhibition to celebrate the 350th anniversary of Peter's birth on Thursday, Putin drew a parallel to his invasion of Ukraine.
"Peter the Great waged the Great Northern War for 21 years. It would seem that he was at war with Sweden, he took something from them," he said, according to a translation from Reuters. "He did not take anything from them, he returned [them]."
Referring to the Ukraine invasion he said: "Apparently, it also fell to us to return [what is Russia’s] and strengthen [the country]. And if we proceed from the fact that these basic values form the basis of our existence, we will certainly succeed in solving the tasks that we face."
By "cracking down on it" you mean restarting the war against the Chechens? That is totally in line with the imperialist cause. Putin obviously tolerates minorities, as long they don't want to separate from the Empire. That is natural for an Empire.I'm not the one making sweeping claims about Russian identity based on a few speeches by Putin or even the existence of nationalism in a country. It's pretty clear Putin has been using nationalist sentiments as a political tool. First he cracks down on it, then he employs it, then he puts the breaks on it because others are getting to popular. And if some support is enough to support claims of the existence of Russian identity as you're doing now then equally showing there's some lack of support proves the opposite. — Benkei
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