Supported with oil dollars and conscription? — frank

I'm no military expert, but my understanding is that Russia is able to keep up with a high intensity conflict only for a few weeks, maybe a month. They have already reduced their frontline attacks, perhaps temporarily. But they could keep bombing civilians and occupying Ukraine for a long time.

The Russian economy could pivot to become better integrated with the Chinese economy. It would be less profitable and also place Russia in a situation of dependency to China, something they would resent, but what choice do they have now? Withdraw from Ukraine and ask for forgiveness?

We should also treat the same way people who think a bit of genocide is OK because it's realpolitics.

The alternative is for the US not to live up to its security guarantees to Ukraine, which also risks nuclear war. — Count Timothy von Icarus

A minute ago Russia were unlikely to mount any kind of response to NATO escalation, now everyone and their dog will chuck nuclear missiles around like tennis balls if the US don't step in and stop them. Which is it?

The terms of the Bucharest Memorandum do not specify any requirement for military support in the event of an invasion. They only specify respecting territorial boundaries (which Russia has broken) and refraining from economic coercion (which the US has broken). It provides that the other signatories will provide "assistance" to Ukraine (of unspecified type) in the event that it is the subject of "aggression in which nuclear weapons are used"

So I'm in the dark as to what guarantees you might be talking about.

how does everything said about reckless escalation not apply to Russia attacking a country that the US has openly promised to protect in coordination with Russia? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Who said it didn't?

To facilitate a reduction of the number of countries with nuclear weapons, the US made security promises to Ukraine in exchange for them delivering the weapons to Moscow, something Moscow agreed to.

With that in mind, how does everything said about reckless escalation not apply to Russia attacking a country that the US has openly promised to protect in coordination with Russia? — Count Timothy von Icarus

So the US and Russia haven't been fighting over Ukraine for decades.

That's insulting to Jews, native Americans, Aboriginals and a multitude of other people who were actually the target of genocide.

The Russian economy could pivot to become better integrated with the Chinese economy. It would be less profitable and also place Russia in a situation of dependency to China, something they would resent, but what choice do they have now? Withdraw from Ukraine and ask for forgiveness? — Olivier5

If Putin pulled out of Ukraine now, how long would it take to normalise relations with Europe?

And there was that time the Dutch committed genocide against the French. Terrible.

If Putin pulled out of Ukraine now, how long would it take to normalise relations with Europe? — frank

The time it would take to make sure it's not a ruse, I would guess. Like a few months.

Could you rephrase this, I'm not following. — Manuel

Ok. An example

El Salvador isn't a threat itself to the US during the Cold War.

But the Sandinistas presented a threat for Reagan government because a) if other Central American countries would become communist too, the domino theory, or b) if Russia build naval bases or airbases there. Perhaps even go for the option that they tried in Cuba.

Both options a) and b) were purely hypothetical. But enough to be reasons for the US to finance it's Contra's to fight the Sandinista government. Yet in fact, after the Cold War ended Daniel Ortega came again into power and now is your typical Central American dictator and nobody cares!

Which just shows how wrong the hypothetical reasons a) and b) actually were.

Hope this clarified what I meant.

Thanks for the clarification. I had just woken up, so I was slower than I usually am. :sweat:

Sure, what you say here makes sense. And indeed, a and b turned out to be wrong. It's another issue, altogether more complex, if at the time (the 1980's) the people in power really believed that the Sandinistas were a threat.

It looks to me like the Domino Theory is correct in fact, hence why Vietnam was destroyed.

But I suspect that, it's not always cynicism, that is, I think people in power really do feel a threat.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/4/14/russia-warns-of-nuclear-deployment-if-sweden-finland-join-nato

Russia warns of nuclear deployment if Sweden, Finland join NATO

Russian military are making thousands of job postings on sites like HeadHunter and Superjob: https://hh.ru/vacancies/voennosluzhaschij-po-kontraktu

This isn't a new phenomenon as such, but in the past such postings were mostly for civil specialists like bookkeeper. Now it's mostly combat specialties. And there are a lot more of them all of a sudden. Posted salaries for these essentially mercenary contracts are pretty modest even by Russia's standards, although real pay would be much higher for a combat deployment.

In one city you can even find ads for a short-term military contract in the local subway:



What a contrast with this!

The Moskva is the second major ship known to have suffered serious damage since the start of the war. — Olivier5

The Moskva has now sunk, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.

The Moskva has now sunk, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. — Olivier5

:lol:

What elements of the Hodolomor, during which the USSR killed 3-5 million Ukrainians, somehow make it not genocide?

You can't exactly call it "accidental" when you requisition all the food, including the seed for future harvests, and burn the infrastructure to boot. Or when you pass a law against collecting left over grain scraps in the fields, so that any remaining calories in the area have to rot on the ground, and further blacklist areas that show any resistance by sealing them off from any ability to trade for food.

It also looks suspicious when ethnic Russians are 10% of the population at the outset of the famine and represent a tiny number of the fatalities, while you also move to settle Russians across depopulated areas and somehow have food for them.

Furthermore, moving 500,000+ people across Asia for slave labor and not providing for shelter from the elements, resulting in high fatality rates, and doing this directly in response to fears of nationalist sentiment looks like genocide too. So does massacuring Ukrainian intellectuals and artists and destroying cultural artifacts at the same time that you forcibly starve millions, while you simultaneously move to settle the dominant ethnic group in their land, and then begin reeducation efforts to tell Ukrainians that their ethnicity never existed.

But hey, I guess if you wait 60 years for your archives to begin to open and run a totalitarian state, you can convince people of a lot of things...

That Putin also denies the Hodolomor and the genocide of Poles under Stalin (does shooting 100,000+ people based on their ethnicity count?), "mourns," the passing of the USSR, or that Russians consistently vote for Stalin in polls for the most extraordinary leader in their country's history, says plenty about why relation with Ukraine, Poland, etc. are the way they are.

Whether one describes it as a 'removal of a people' for the sake of doing that or not, the brutality accepted as necessary to achieve goals has been well established. Tough if you are one of the troublesome people.

The Moskva has now sunk, according to the Russian Defense Ministry. — Olivier5

It's pretty clear how big the incompetence is in the Russian military, all the way to the top. I've positioned this right at the start of the war, Russians are just marketing and blunt large force, but no brains. It's like a brainless brute forcing itself into another nation, but they have nothing but that. Without their nukes, Russia would have been overthrown by now, there would have been little reason not to just cut off Putin and his minions. Russia's nukes are the ONLY real power they have, outside of it, there's nothing. Pretty pathetic in my opinion, all talk, and no real might. There's always been a toxic-masculinity attitude out of Russia, but this whole war put a spotlight on just how pathetic all of it really is, an entire military built upon it resulting in immature bullies conducting war crimes and big warship fleet leaders thinking they have nothing to worry about.

The pride of Russia’s fearsome Black Sea fleet was taken out yesterday in one of the most cunning operations of the war.

Ukrainian commanders destroyed the huge Moskva warship by using drones to distract its defence systems and allowing surface-skimming missiles to strike.

The 12,500-ton cruiser’s protective sensors seemingly did not see the Neptune rockets heading its way because they were tracking Turkish TB2 drones.

Providing a massive boost to morale in Kyiv, and a huge blow to Vladimir Putin’s navy, two missiles slammed into the port side of the 611ft Moskva, rocking her violently and causing a catastrophic explosion and huge fires.

As flames lit up the stormy Black Sea, the ship’s 510 crewmen frantically climbed into lifeboats and fled.
The surprise attack took place at 2am yesterday as the Moskva, Russia’s main ‘command and control’ warship, was 60 miles south of Odessa.

The ship’s captain and air defence officers were said to be tracking the decoy TB2s, unaware a pair of Ukrainian-made Neptune R360 anti-ship missiles were heading their way after being launched from an artillery battery on the coastline.

The missiles, each weighing a ton and with a range of 170 nautical miles, approached the Moskva at sea level. Travelling at such a low trajectory in rough seas meant they were difficult to track.

Last night, Western officials said Ukrainian reports of the operation were ‘credible’ and the attack demonstrated their ability to strike the Russians in areas where they assumed they were invulnerable. — The Daily Mail

This report has not been corroborated in detail by other sources although there are many reports that the ship was struck by two missiles. True to form, Moscow denied that the ship had been attacked, saying that it sank as a result of an accident.

(Incidentally, a 12,500 ton ship is by no means ‘huge’ so I don’t know how that crept in to the description.)

They supply anti-ship missiles and it sinks a ship. Helicopters attack across the border, but any talk of placing cruise missiles on Ukranian soil to defend Ukraine before the invasion is 'provoking Russian aggression". Sounds like a plan to me.

The defense of Ukraine is done, as far as I am concerned. If this is defending a country, then I think defense is highly overrated. More to the point, I am suggesting the Presidents have reached some sort of a deal as to how and when it will end, with a secure peace. Then I wish the United States of Europe, including Ukraine all the best!

I just realized United States of Europe spells "USE". And USA spells "USER"

Here is a thought.

After all, no one can deny that everything that Russia has done in Ukraine, the United States did in Afghanistan and Iraq. Given such, how about having joint war crimes trials — ones in which both Russian and U.S. officials and military personnel are tried together?

https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/04/13/why-not-joint-war-crimes-trials/

It would be nice reunion for President "Russia Is Not the Enemy" Bush and President Putin.

While it is a crime to call for the assassination of the President of a certain country by its own citizens, apparently leaders of other nations are not covered my this law, but the existence of the law proves the seriousness of such statements. Not sure if it is a war crime.

Last night, Western officials said Ukrainian reports of the operation were ‘credible’ and the attack demonstrated their ability to strike the Russians in areas where they assumed they were invulnerable. — The Daily Mail

So they wait until Ukraine is invaded, 'genocide', widespread destruction that will take years to build. It is all according to plan. They assumed they were invulnerable because NATO never supplied the 'needed' weapons. All according to some Master Plan of sorts.

US: Enables and supports the genocide carried out on Yemnis by Saudi Arabia while provking war in Ukraine.

Also US: How could Russia do this???

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations accused Russia on Thursday of making the precarious food situation in Yemen and elsewhere even worse by invading Ukraine, calling it “just another grim example of the ripple effect Russia’s unprovoked, unjust, unconscionable war is having on the world’s most vulnerable.”

Linda Thomas-Greenfield told a U.N. Security Council meeting on war-torn Yemen that the World Food Program identified the Arab world’s poorest nation as one of the countries most affected by wheat price increases and lack of imports from Ukraine.

https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-business-europe-united-nations-yemen-52ed5d071e4022078c93a5a1975ae38d?

What a fucking joke.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/4/14/russia-warns-of-nuclear-deployment-if-sweden-finland-join-nato

Russia warns of nuclear deployment if Sweden, Finland join NATO — Manuel

This caught my attention, because in my line of work, to deploy is the same as to launch. But of course, that's not what it means.

According to the Lithuanian defence minister, Russia already has nuclear weapons in Kaliningrad. In any case, I'm not sure how seriously we should take the words of Medvedev, who is widely regarded in Russia as a posturing buffoon with no real, independent power. On the other hand, his statements maybe often reflect Kremlin thinking, in that what he says is a simplification or exaggeration of what others around him have been saying. And I guess a military buildup on the Baltic wouldn't be a surprising response to Sweden and Finland joining NATO.

Russians are just marketing and blunt large force, but no brains. — Christoffer

I agree. Even their war disinformation efforts appear amateuristic.

Are you seriously pretending we were talking about history and not parroting Biden's idiotic qualification of the current war? Come on.

that the US has openly promised to protect in coordination with Russia — Count Timothy von Icarus

It has made no such promise, which is why they were stringing Ukraine along for 14 years precisely to avoid having to protect them. Which is now also the problem for Ukraine pursuing neutrality. It refused neutrality as long as its neutrality isn't guaranteed by a guarantee to protect by several Western powers.

So why dangle membership if you never intended to let them join and aren't willing to protect them? Hmmm... What other motive could they have had? Wow, this is so complicated... :zip:



What I don't understand is why now? Why not wait until the pressure is at least a bit lower making it less provocative and less likely to lead to further escalation?

Yes, but Russia isn't a normal modern state... — Christoffer

Personally, I think Russia is pretty much a normal modern state, or at least no less abnormal than the USA. Being a regional power it of course acts differently than Belgium.

They already broke such laws. If a criminal is shooting at the police after the police have shouted at them to put down the weapon and apply to the set rules of society, the police have the authority to shoot down the criminal. — Christoffer

Yes, but that is all written down in laws that provide legitimacy in such cases.

Nowhere in international law are such things legitimized. States have the right to self-defense, but that only goes so far to legitimize the use of force, and it certainly doesn't legitimize assassinations of non-combatants.

And what is happening in Ukraine right now? What about how Putin and his minions spread the rhetoric that being a "Ukrainian" is "invalid". It's still up for debate if there's a genocide going on, but there's a lot constantly being uncovered. — Christoffer

Considering the amount of restraint Russia has shown so far (that may sound weird, but given the amount of firepower Russia possesses, they have clearIy been holding back, probably to try and save their legitimacy) and the little they stand to gain by committing atrocities, I find these claims of genocide extremely questionable.

But if the claims turn out to be true, international law has ways of bringing war criminals to justice - through tribunals, not through assassinations.

That's what the international community has decided; that in order to uphold international order as best as possible, the international community cannot advocate and use the same methods that they condemn.

I think that's where we differ. Many said the same about Hitler, Stalin and Mao back in the day when information were still being gathered, but I have no problem considering Putin being cut from the same cloth as other authoritarian despots — Christoffer

"Being cut from the same cloth", perhaps. But considering people "cut from the same cloth" is no grounds to treat people as though they have already committed the crimes. That would be arbitrary lawlessness and against any principles of modern law.

You asserted that a narrative accepting of the inevitability of an iron curtain emerging from this crisis was likely to cause an escalation in the conflict. And yet failed to justify it, or give any rationale.

Looks like rationale is in short supply.

You asserted that a narrative accepting of the inevitability of an iron curtain emerging from this crisis was likely to cause an escalation in the conflict. — Punshhh

Where?

They have to be careful not to slip the surly bonds of credibility. There is a limit to credibility I think once you pass that you are in the land of the incredible.