The Armenian-Azeri conflict has absolutely nothing to do with Russia’s “divide-and-rule tactics”. — Apollodorus

Except that Stalin made the region with a majority Armenian population to an autonomous oblast of Azerbaijan in 1923.

Furthermore, in the last war it was totally clear that Russia didn't support Armenia as one would think a treaty member should be supported. Of course you might argue that Nagorno-Karabakh isn't Armenia...

Yet one obvious reason is that Russia didn't like the administration of prime minister Nikol Pashinyan, that had come into power after street protests (read, color revolution) in 2018.

As Aljazeera put it:

Another explanation of Russia’s indecisiveness is the peaceful 2018 uprising that toppled pro-Russian and allegedly corrupt President Sargsyan and installed former publicist Pashinyan at the helm. He tried to diversify Armenia’s political alliances and sought closer ties with the West.

That attempt was a no-no.

One commentator put's it this way (when the last war was fought):

Moscow’s current calculation seems to be that it can have its geopolitical cake and eat it. By holding off, Russia seems to be offering Azerbaijan some time and space to regain territories that are legally part of Azerbaijan but that have been under Armenian control since 1994.

And what about Armenia? From a Russian standpoint, the country will have few options other than to stick with Russia. Even if other states might sound supportive of it now, Armenia knows that Russia remains the only country that would deploy troops to defend it. So, even if Russia lets Azerbaijan recapture some territories, Armenia will have to remain a loyal Russian ally.

With Russia, it's all about control and influence. Or basically dominance. Not to have an alliance where other's can have a say (and thus can have a mind of their own, like Turkey's horse trading now with Swedish and Finnish NATO membership or the various times when France and other allies haven't gone along with US foreign policy adventures).

Putin isn't immortal, neither are his henchmen. Patience NATO, patience!

:snicker:

Good New Yorker article about the way the Russian propaganda machine is structured and functions:

https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-communications/inside-putins-propaganda-machine

This is what 'being liberated by Russia' looks like. Who wouldn't want that?

Meanwhile, being 'liberated' by the West looks like:

In March, the Ukrainian parliament passed wartime legislation that severely curtailed the ability of trade unions to represent their members, introduced ‘suspension of employment’ (meaning employees are not fired, but their work and wages are suspended) and gave employers the right to unilaterally suspend collective agreements. But beyond this temporary measure, a group of Ukrainian MPs and officials are now aiming to further ‘liberalise’ and ‘de-Sovietise’ the country’s labour laws. Under a draft law, people who work in small and medium-sized firms – those which have up to 250 employees – would, in effect, be removed from the country’s existing labour laws and covered by individual contracts negotiated with their employer. More than 70% of the Ukrainian workforce would be affected by this change.

Against a background of concerns that Ukrainian officials are using Russia’s invasion to push through a long-awaited radical deregulation of labour laws, one expert has warned that the introduction of civil law into labour relations risks opening a “Pandora’s box” for workers. ... Vitaliy Dudin, an expert on labour law and a representative of the Social Movement organisation, says the proposed new law is the “most radical approach to destroying the social partnership model”. For Dudin, the most destructive part of the new legislation is the introduction of Ukraine’s civil law into employment relations. According to him, Ukraine’s civil law is based on the idea that two parties are equal, whereas the relationship between an employer and employee is not – the employer is always in a more advantageous position. “This is a rollback to the 19th century. By introducing civil law into labour relations, we can open Pandora’s box,” he says

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/ukraines-new-labour-law-wartime/

Can't post pictures of atrocity porn to get-off to on this topic, however. Not that Russia would do any better, but the West is no less a terminal virus which similarly ought to be expunged.

As for Finland and Sweden's rush to join NATO - as ever, one simply needs to follow the money:

The demographic most opposed to NATO membership in Sweden is young men, aged 18-29. And little wonder. They are the segment of the population that would be called upon to join any future military excursion. Contrary to the assumption that Russian aggression has shocked Swedes into unanimous support for the alliance, opposition appears to be on the rise. ... Polling by Helsingin Sanomat describes the typical NATO supporter as educated, middle-aged or older, male, working in a management-level position, earning at least €85,000 a year and politically on the right, while the typical NATO-sceptic is under the age of 30, a worker or a student, earning less than €20,000 a year and politically on the left.

Some of the most ardent supporters of NATO membership can be found among Sweden and Finland’s business leaders. Last month, Finnish President Sauli Niinistö hosted a ‘secret NATO meeting’ in Helsinki. Among those in attendance were Swedish Minister of Finance Mikael Damberg, top-ranking military officials and powerful figures in the Swedish and Finnish business communities. Chief among them was the billionaire Swedish industrialist Jacob Wallenberg, whose family holdings add up to one third of the Stockholm Stock Exchange. Wallenberg has been NATO’s most enthusiastic cheerleader among Swedish executives.

...The decision to join NATO does not just rely on a hollowed-out discourse of solidarity; it is also presented as a vital act of self-interest – a defensive response to the ‘Russian threat’. In Sweden’s case, we are asked to believe that the country is currently facing greater security risks than during both World Wars, and that the only way to address them is to enter a beefed-up military alliance. Although Russia is supposedly struggling to make headway against a much weaker opponent in Ukraine – unable to hold the capital, hemorrhaging troops and supplies – we are told that it poses an imminent threat to Stockholm and Helsinki. Amid such confected panic, genuine threats to the Nordic way of life have gone ignored: the withering away of the welfare state, the privatization and marketization of education, rising inequality and the weakening of the universal healthcare system. While rushing to align with ‘the West’, the Swedish and Finnish governments have shown considerably less urgency in tackling these social crises.

https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/joining-the-west?pc=1442

Turns out I too, like listening to 'local' voices - just not voices that happen to align with the rich and powerful.

the West is no less a terminal virus which similarly ought to be expunged. — Streetlight

You might appreciate this diatribe in Al Jazeera:


The future is post-Western
This current chapter of Western-run human history must be flung shut.
Yannick Giovanni Marshall
Published On 20 May 2022

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/5/20/the-future-is-post-western

Yannick Giovanni Marshall is currently Assistant Professor of Africana Studies (sic) at Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois (re-sic).

No that was boring and unspecific.

I guess it's hard to be specific about a post western world when one is born and raised in Canada, as is the case for the author.

Maybe you want to give it a try. Could be a nice thread.

Because I am not a racist and a bigot, I reckon most people can discuss anything regardless of where they are from.

Of course they can discuss anything, but it's difficult to imagine the end of one's own world. People living in the Roman empire could hardly imagine its fall. Apparently a similar phenomenon happened to some American nations during the European colonization. They felt it was a bad dream, a nightmare from which they would wake up at some point.

Problem is, they never woke up from it. They had to accept the nightmare as real.

Something similar will happen to our civilization, at a not so distant point now. We cannot really imagine it, only dimly. And when it happens, few will understand what just happened, because we see the world through our self-satisfied, self-gratulating western eyes.

Speak for parochial yourself.

Oh no, what I say on one's cultural framework restricting the domain of what is "thinkable" only applies to other people. Moi? I speak for the entire universe. ;-)

If you really want to know who the original inhabitants of Crimea were, then you should try to find out instead on fixating on Tatars just because it serves your political agenda. — “Apollodorus

YOU should feel compelled to find out who the original inhabitants of Crimea were by your own theory of the rightful owners, NOT ME! And in any case it’s NOT the Russians!

Tatars and other Turkic peoples originally came from the same area as the Mongols and are genetically closely related to them. — Apollodorus

Authors Joo-Yup Lee and Shuntu Kuang analyzed ten years of genetic research on Turkic people and compiled scholarly information about Turkic origins, and said that the early and medieval Turks were a heterogeneous group and that the Turkification of Eurasia was a result of language diffusion, not a migration of a homogeneous population .
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkic_migration#Origin_theories

You keep talking about the origins of the Tatars and Turkic peoples (while conflating genetic with cultural-linguistic factors), not about the Crimean Tatars whose origins are indigenous to Crimea and stem from millennia of demographic stratification that preceded and followed Mongol invasions! You didn't disprove anything I said about the Crimean Tatars! They are NOT the Mongols of Crimea as the filo-Russian propaganda would claim!

The Greeks were the first to introduce civilization and to build cities in Crimea from the 5th century BC, and southern Crimea remained Greek until it was conquered by Turkey in 1475, i.e., it was GREEK for a thousand years! — Apollodorus

From the evidence I provided the ancient Tauri community merged with the Crimean Tatars (at least in good part, considering that the Crimean Greek-speaking Greeks were deported outside Crimea again by the Russians https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_Greeks#History), so I don't see how the distinction you make can be of any help to you. But hey if you think that the original inhabitants of Crimea are the Greeks, then, again, you should support the "Crimean Greeks", or the Ukrainian Greeks or the Greeks in general (if you want to go as far as to claim that Crimea and other parts of Ukraine like Mariupol and Donetsk belong to Greece!) and - for exactly the same reason - oppose the Russification of Crimea (and Ukraine) as an imperialist and colonialist process against indigenous people of Crimea!

In any case Crimean Tatars have surely more of a claim on Crimea than the Russians for historical reasons! In other words Russians are not the right owners of Crimea!

By taking Crimea from the Tatars and Turks in 1783, Russia reintegrated Crimea into Europe, put an end to the Tatar depredations, and redressed a historic injustice. And justice, after all, is what this is about. — Apollodorus

The "historic injustice” you are referring to concerns the raids of the Crimean–Nogai Horde of centuries ago (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean%E2%80%93Nogai_slave_raids_in_Eastern_Europe) to the Russians of centuries ago not to the current Crimean Tatars and, as I argued, only a sub-group of Crimean Tatars may have genetic ties with the Crimean–Nogai Horde! (“It is the most likely that discovered features of Steppe Crimean Tatars gene pool reflect the genetic contribution of medieval Eurasian Steppe nomads. The component predominant in Mountain and Coastal Crimean Tatars gene pools and in Crimean Greeks suggests that genetic contribution of East Mediterranean populations continued in Crimea for many centuries.” Source: https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/the-gene-pool-of-indigenous-crimean-populations-mediterranean-meets-eurasian-steppe/pdf, “The Westasian and Mediterranean genetic components (population of Asia Minor and Balkans) predominate in the gene pool of Crimea Tatars, the Eurasian steppe component is much fewer.” Source: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311805917_The_Tatars_of_Eurasia_peculiarity_of_Crimean_Volga_and_Siberian_Tatar_gene_pools). But notice that Turkic people inhabited Crimea for centuries prior to the Crimean-Nogai Horde (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgars , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khazars) and even prior to the formation of Kievan Rus’ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kievan_Rus%27)!
Finally, not only the Russian ancestors were the victims of Crimean-Niogai Tatars' raids but also the Ukrainian ancestors (more likely so, since Crimea is attached to Ukraine) so why on earth should Crimea be a compensation for the Russians and not for the Ukrainians?!

But tell me more about how your "historic injustice” theory work, should the Russians become the right owners of Mongolia too, or Crimea is enough as a compensation?! BTW Russian ancestors pillaged, raped and enslaved Azerbaijani and Iranian people too https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caspian_expeditions_of_the_Rus%27 so are Azerbaijan and Iran right owners of pieces of Russia as a compensation now?! And what is the compensation for the Ukrainian oppression by the Russian empire as Lenin acknowledged (https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/dec/12a.htm) and by Stalin, the Russian national hero (https://cla.umn.edu/chgs/holocaust-genocide-education/resource-guides/holodomor)?!

If we say that “Crimea belongs to the Tatars” and the Tatars are considered to be Turks, we can see how this can be an invitation for Turkey to try and bring Crimea under its control and we’re playing into the hands of Erdogan who aims to rebuild the Ottoman Empire. — Apollodorus

According to YOUR theory, if Crimean Tatars want to join Turkey, that should be fine with you too!

Rather than arguing about the racial origins of Crimean Tatars, let me tell you something about the actual people. I bet that most here have never seen a Crimean Tatar in person - they are not so numerous now, and they have historically lived compactly in and around Crimea - before Stalin's deportation, that is.

Crimean Tatars have strong community bonds; this is what helped them preserve their national and cultural identity through their troubled Soviet history. Following Stalin's death, they were partially cleared of the charge of Nazi collaboration, but without the right of return to their homeland and without restoration of their seized property. Later, in the 1960s, the collective punishment was finally lifted from the Crimean Tatar people, together with the prohibition of settling in Crimea, but no compensation or resettlement assistance was offered. On the contrary, although they were no longer legally barred from living in Crimea, authorities made it very difficult for Tatars to move there. This was helped by Soviet Catch-22 registration laws (the infamous propiska), which technically made it next to impossible for people to change residence within the country without being explicitly authorized and directed by the state. In an apt illustration of a popular saying that the severity of Russian laws is moderated by their arbitrary enforcement, motivated people found ways around that legal thicket. Except that in the case of Crimean Tatars enforcement was anything but arbitrary. However, thanks to hard work and cooperation, Tatars trickled back to their homeland over the ensuing decades, and you could see them here and there on the peninsula.

In the late 1980s, on the wave of general liberalization, Crimean Tatars were campaigning for their right of return, assisted by Russian human rights activists with a lot of experience navigating Moscow bureaucracy. I shared a flat with members of their delegation for a couple of weeks at that time. Lovely people, from what I can remember of them.

The bureaucratic wall finally fell at the high point of Perestroika. Shortly after the USSR was dissolved, and under the benign neglect of the newly sovereign Ukrainian state Tatars streamed back to Crimea. Most Crimean Tatar families were able to return, even without assistance from the state - such was their determination to regain their homeland. Now, however, they are once again facing repression from Russia. Shortly after it annexed Crimea, Russia banned the main organization of Crimean Tatars that served as their informal organ of self-government and mutual aid, and exiled its leader. Dozens have since been imprisoned on trumped-up charges; many had to flee to mainland Ukraine - where they are now once again being pursued by Russian occupiers.


I recall one encounter in central Crimea, from the time before the annexation. I was on a local train from Bakhchysarai, on my way to meet some friends. There were two women in the same car, one young, one middle-aged - probably her mother. The young woman was dressed in modern urban garb and spoke in Russian. The older wore more a traditional rural clothing - dark dress and a headscarf. She spoke in what I assumed to be one of the Crimean Tatar dialects, with no admixture of Russian words (as often happens with non-Russian people who live among Russian speakers). They carried on their conversation throughout the entire trip, neither one the least bit inconvenienced by this superposition of dissimilar languages.

↪neomac
Rather than arguing about the racial origins of Crimean Tatars, let me tell you something about the actual people. I bet that most here have never seen a Crimean Tatar in person - they are not so numerous now, and they have historically lived compactly in and around Crimea - before Stalin's deportation, that is. — SophistiCat

:ok:

That was interesting. Especially when you look at the sources on the new left review article.

A quote:

Polling by Helsingin Sanomat describes the typical NATO supporter as educated, middle-aged or older, male, working in a management-level position, earning at least €85,000 a year and politically on the right, while the typical NATO-sceptic is under the age of 30, a worker or a student, earning less than €20,000 a year and politically on the left.

Luckily the article gives the link to the Helsingin Sanomat article, which is in Finnish. Which actually states this:

Tyypillinen Natoon liittymisen kannattaja on akateemisesti koulutettu keski-ikäinen tai ikääntyvä mies, joka on ammatiltaan johtaja tai ylempi toimihenkilö. Hän ansaitsee yli 85 000 euroa vuodessa ja kuuluu poliittisesti oikealle. Puolueista hän kannattaa kokoomusta.

Kriittisimmin Natoon suhtautuvat alle 30-vuotiaat ja naiset. Nato-kriittiset ovat peruskoulutettuja työntekijöitä tai opiskelijoita. He ansaitsevat alle 20 000 euroa vuodessa ja kuuluvat poliittisesti vasemmalle.

On kuitenkin huomattava, että myös kriittisemmin Natoon suhtautuvissa ryhmissä enemmistö ja osin hyvinkin selvä enemmistö kannattaa Nato-jäsenyyttä.

NATON kannatus on lisääntynyt kahden viime viikon aikana erityisesti työntekijöiden, alle 20 000 euroa vuodessa ansaitsevien, peruskoulutettujen, työväenluokkaan kuuluvien, opiskelijoiden sekä sosiaalidemokraatteja ja vihreitä kannattavien joukossa.

The first two paragraphs is used in the article, which explain who is the typical person in favour of NATO and who are against (under 30, women etc). What is (naturally?) dismissed are the following paragraphs of the same article:

And this is what that's in English:

It should be noted, however, that even in the more critical NATO groups, the majority, and in some cases, a very clear majority are in favor of NATO membership.

Support for NATO has increased over the last two weeks especially among workers, those earning less than € 20,000 a year, those in basic education, the working class, students and those in favor of the Social Democrats and the Greens.

And here is the prime example of media bias.

It's not based on lies, it's about selective use of sources and a noteworthy comment like a) that there has been a rapid change in the views of young leftist people and that b) and there is a clear majority among all age groups etc is not something worthy or notable to write in the article.

That actually the Finnish Parliament voted 188 to 8 in favor of NATO, which one of the most unanimous votes ever taken in the Parliament (a bigger majority than the vote in 1917 for Independence), isn't noted.

Hence Lily Lynch's agenda is quite easy to see.

Hence Lily Lynch's agenda is quite easy to see. — ssu

And your agenda? Pointing out the omissions in a left-wing, anti-NATO article...?

Do we see the same eagle-eyed hunt for bias in the more centrist, mainstream offerings others have posted? No, of course not.

Spotting bias in politically embedded arguments is like spotting typographic errors. Pointless and ubiquitous.

What matters is why Lynch is looking to find a leftist, anti-NATO angle, and why your biases are looking to support a centrist, pro-NATO one.

I can't speak for Lynch, but the benefits of a leftist, anti-NATO view seem obvious - equality, fair distribution of power, etc.

What's different about centrists is that their arguments seem entirely to plead necessity : "we'd love to reign in America's power but unfortunately we're forced to pick the lesser of two evils", or "we'd love nothing more than to give more to the poor, but unfortunately the economy just doesn't work that way, our hands are tied".

So the whole centrist agenda relies on the objective, cold, hard, rational assessment. Which is why you guys cling so desperately to this idea of impartially.

Except it's bollocks.

Oh and...

And here is the prime example of media bias. — ssu

The mainstream media are literally inviting arms dealers on to give commentary on how the war is going.

Newspapers are actually contradicting their own previous reports to change the narrative about Nazis.

Social media platforms are consulting with the government to ban anything contrary to the official government line on the war.

...and only now you see fit to bring up media bias, now there's a left-wing article?

How long do we think this war will carry on for, now that the Russians have Mariupol?

How long do we think this war will carry on for, now that the Russians have Mariupol? — Xtrix

Far longer than it should, unfortunately. Russia cannot obtain it's objectives. But it can prolong the war if Putin wants to prolong it. Putin hasn't ever had to withdraw from a fight, so he unlikely will do it.

The problem is that it when both sides are out of steam for an offensive, it can just become static as before (in 2015-2022). Zelensky has declared that now Ukraine has 700 000 in service now. As obviously a major part of that force aren't frontline troops, it's still a huge manpower reserve. In the 8 years of fighting before this large scale attack about 400 000 Ukrainians did serve on the front. These make the backbone of a qualified reserve for Ukraine.

The problem is that it when both sides are out of steam for an offensive, it can just become static as before (in 2015-2022). — ssu

Perhaps then peace negotiations can start again and we can get a ceasefire, at the very least.

Perhaps then peace negotiations can start again and we can get a ceasefire, at the very least. — Xtrix

The question is why would there be a ceasefire. Ceasefires happen when either one side sees the situation totally unbearable or are close to defeat and the other sees a ceasefire a far better choice than the continuation of the war. There is no imminent outside reason for the conflict to end.

It will have to end in an ceasefire. It's extremely unprobable that Putin can invade all of Ukraine and Ukrainian tanks will never be on the Red Square.

Likely Putin is embracing for a long war. Already in the Duma they are talking about postponing future elections. As elections would according to some in the Duma be bad for morale.

On May 17, lawmakers in the State Duma discussed the possibility of cancelling both gubernatorial and regional and municipal elections scheduled for September 11, 2022. The stated reason is the need to support the president unanimously during Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine.

- - -

Under the circumstances of the special military operation, do we need to hold elections on [September 11]? We should all be unified now, but what will happen in elections? We’ll have to fight against each other. All of us here in this chamber support the president and the special military operation, but we’ll need to talk about our differences in elections,” Just Russia party chairman Sergey Mironov said in a speech to the State Duma on May 17.

That actually the Finnish Parliament voted 188 to 8 in favor of NATO, which one of the most unanimous votes ever taken in the Parliament (a bigger majority than the vote in 1917 for Independence), isn't noted. — ssu

God I wish you were even semi-literate:

In Finland, however, there is little mainstream opposition to NATO. The issue has been tinged by nationalist sentiment, and opponents of membership are accused of not caring about their country’s security. Parliament voted overwhelmingly in favour of membership this week, with 188 for and only eight against. — The Article

But that would be too much to except to a Nazi PR pusher.

God I wish you were even semi-literate: — Streetlight

OK! So she mentioned that. So I stand corrected, enough to be corrected earlier in the article that I didn't notice it. Yet the issue is that now in every age group and income group, there is a majority for NATO membership. Which was left out. (So at least I have better in Finnish literacy than you are, Aussie.)

And how much "nationalist sentiment" is there in the Green Party, The Social Democrats and the Left Alliance now in government sounds a bit dubious for me. The Left Alliance didn't walk out of the government, so I guess they uphold "nationalism" now.

You just continue and tell us how bad Ukraine, the Ukrainian government and perhaps the Ukrainians are (Nazis, corrupt neoliberals oligarch lovers and so on...) and how the West (US) is turning a blind eye on the evils of Ukraine. Because that's the most important issue here, right?

the issue is that now in every age group and income group, there is a majority for NATO membership. — ssu

Pathetic attempt at deflection.

The issue is that support for NATO membership is being driven by industries who stand to benefit from it. Which is why...

Though Sweden has held referenda on every major decision in recent history – EU membership, the adoption of the euro – it will not consult its citizens on NATO.

And why the article opens with a description of the heavily propagandised media to conclude...

In this media environment, it is perhaps unsurprising that support for NATO membership is high

The demographics are only really mentioned to show the blatant lie behind...

the political class ‘will now face a contest between an older generation and younger ones looking at the world with fresh eyes.’

...by revealing that...

In reality, though, the opposite is true:

the typical NATO-sceptic is under the age of 30, a worker or a student, earning less than €20,000 a year and politically on the left.

Far from the soulless statistical reportage you're critiquing, the point of the article is that, for example,...

Swedish industrialist Jacob Wallenberg, whose family holdings add up to one third of the Stockholm Stock Exchange. Wallenberg has been NATO’s most enthusiastic cheerleader among Swedish executives.

Sweden’s Expressen reported that the meeting suggested the business community holds far greater power over foreign policy decisions than previously thought.

...and...

Chief Executive Micael Johansson has said that Sweden’s NATO membership will open new possibilities for Saab in the areas of missile defense and surveillance.

The considerable influence of business leaders on the NATO question contrasts with that of the general public.

But by all means carry on pretending that this is about getting the polling right and ignore the blatant railroading of the issue by big business. I'm sure the fact that they stand to make billions out of the move is just another one of those coincidences we hear so much about lately, where rich and powerful institutions are both capable of influencing policy and benefit from influencing policy, but on this occasion just happen not to have done.


And by the way, I was tucking into some Knäckebröd, whilst listening to Abba in my Fjällräven shirt whilst writing that so I'm totally allowed to have an opinion on it.

the blatant railroading of the issue by big business. — Isaac

Lol. Oh boy, are you clueless. Last time big business was indeed "blatantly railroading" was with the EU membership. And that was a close call, actually. But of course you don't know anything about my country. And it seems that you have mixed my and @Christoffer's country, which is quite telling. :snicker:

But of course you don't know anything about my country. — ssu

So on what grounds are you even taking part in a thread on Ukraine?

And it seems that you have mixed my and Christoffer's country, which is quite telling. :snicker: — ssu

The article was about Finland and Sweden. You're from Finland are Christoffer is from Sweden. Is that wrong?

Since Chomsky is a common source for everyone who likes to muddy the waters as to who's the aggressor and downplay Ukrainian's right to defend themselves, here's an open letter as a response.

https://blogs.berkeley.edu/2022/05/19/open-letter-to-noam-chomsky-and-other-like-minded-intellectuals-on-the-russia-ukraine-war/?fbclid=IwAR0jG9z-7zfHPsUmBZQr2w4vpljnHzwYQSBdwTJGyDAUBxu_gme1Ln2qs70

The question is why would there be a ceasefire. Ceasefires happen when either one side sees the situation totally unbearable or are close to defeat and the other sees a ceasefire a far better choice than the continuation of the war. There is no imminent outside reason for the conflict to end. — ssu

You're forgetting stalemates.

I agree with all those nuances and I think it's still good to remember we really don't know all that much so shouldn't get our panties too twisted when someone disagrees. Also, we shouldn't overestimate the ability to emulate the scientific method through a thinking process - a lot is grunt work and getting enough data which we simply don't have the time for especially in areas like these: none of us our experts. But this is a sensitive topic even so and a lot of ethical feeling is associated with it, so when someone's panties are twisted, we shouldn't care too much either and at least try to listen.