Socialists sort of promoting nationalist authoritatian oppressive degenerative capitalist Kremlin...? — jorndoe

They publish articles about the Ukraine war under the heading "US-NATO Conflict with Russia over Ukraine" That's quality journalism for you :roll: Their parroting of Russian official narrative is tactical, sort of like the Iran-Russia alliance in this war. Anything that can be used to poke the Big Satan in the eye will do.

These socialists' only concern is "the struggle," and they are indiscriminate about methods. Being truthful is not the objective; being correct - politically correct, in the older, unironic sense - is what it's all about.

Captured Ukrainian soldiers face trial in Russia
^{— AP · Jun 14, 2023}

I'm sure those cooks are guilty of...something. Maybe even worse than Navalny.

Federal Antimonopoly Service of Russia has demanded from oil companies that they increase the sales of gasoline on the stock exchange as there are deficits of gasoline in the domestic market. It seems that describing Russia as a 'big gas station' was indeed a mischaracterization.
https://fas.gov.ru/news/32622

Maybe it was just some (locally assigned) commander among the invaders that eyed the dam and thought it would cool to blow up? Afraid of the defenders?

Russian forces ‘highly likely’ behind attack on Ukrainian dam, international law investigation says
^{— Amanda Macias · CNBC · Jun 16 2023}
'Highly likely' Russia behind Ukraine dam collapse, international experts say
^{— Anthony Deutsch, Philippa Fletcher · Reuters · Jun 16 2023}

They dismissed the theory that a catastrophic dam breach could have been caused by mismanagement alone.

Some investigation participants:
• GRC, ICC, MJT
• Murdoch, Khan
Funding spans the US, EU, UK.

There's been comments on this stuff prior in the thread (e.g. Apr 24, 2023, Apr 23, 2023, Mar 20, 2023, Mar 2, 2023, Oct 30, 2022).

Russian officials say Black Sea grain deal can't be extended
^{— Gareth Jones, Mark Trevelyan, Nick Macfie · Reuters · Jun 16, 2023}

Uhm It's just the Kremlin standing in the way of the ships transporting food.
Matviyenko Putin Lavrov (maybe Ushakov?) apparently roam an alternate world.

Imagine, for the sake of argument, that the Kremlin controlled all of Ukraine('s grain + fertilizer + processing + transport).
With rubbish like the above coming out of the Kremlin, anything goes (including tactical hostage-holding).
Can always claim to try something else, and if it doesn't work out, blame everyone else.
Regardless, they may get away with it, though one could hope not.

Damn dam situation

Photos: Flood Damage After the Destruction of Ukraine’s Kakhovka Dam
^{— Alan Taylor · The Atlantic · Jun 12, 2023}

The water level in the Kakhovka Reservoir was at a 30-year high

Unclear if reservoir water from breached dam can still be pumped to Zaporizhzhia, IAEA says
^{— Francois Murphy, Frances Kerry · Reuters · Jun 16, 2023}

Rescuers are braving snipers and racing time to ferry Ukrainians out of Russian-occupied flood zones
^{— Samya Kullab, Evgeniy Maloletka, Sam Mcneil · AP · Jun 17, 2023}

Ukrainians rescued from Russian-held flood zones in Kherson
^{— Billal Rahman · The Independent · Jun 17, 2023}
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8lu2ao

Outside a flooded Ukrainian city, specialists warily sweep the ground for hidden bombs
^{— Murray Brewster · CBC · Jun 17, 2023}

Mess :/ At least there are some international teams around

• Russia invades Ukraine (Feb 2014, Feb 2022)
• Russia bombs Ukraine throughout (more or less ongoingly)
• the international community repeatedly condemns the invasion and helps Ukraine
• Ukraine defends
• Russia annexes a fifth or so of Ukraine (altogether)
• others do not supply Ukraine with longer-ranging missiles
• Ukraine develops its own long-range missile (Jun 2023) allegedly
• Kyiv in talks with Western weapons makers about setting up production in Ukraine (Jun 2023)
• (...)

The invaders seem to have (had) some interest in nuclear facilities, Chernobyl, Zaporizhzhia. Maybe, as part of a longer-term strategy, they wanted to make it difficult for Ukraine to develop nuclear weaponry. External parties/countries aren't likely to supply Ukraine with some such. Though, if Kyiv had nuclear weaponry at its disposal, then the Kremlin would have to rethink.

The kinds of stories that perpetuate hate and lead to increased violence ...

She thought she was unshockable, then two castrated Ukrainian soldiers arrived (via archive)
^{— Christina Lamb reports from the Donetsk oblast · The Sunday Times · Jun 17 2023}

These good folk hit a few snags along the way ...

Ukraine updates: African leaders kick off peace mission
^{— various via DW · Jun 15, 2023}
On Ukraine-Russia trip, South African leader’s delegation stuck at Polish airport over arms permits
^{— Mogomotsi Magome, Vanessa Gera, Gerald Imray · AP · Jun 16, 2023}
African leaders greeted with explosions over Kyiv on peace mission to Ukraine
^{— Sarah Dean, Olga Voitovych, Nimi Princewill, Niamh Kennedy · CNN · Jun 16, 2023}
Ukraine tells African mission no peace talks with Russia before withdrawal
^{— Reuters via CNBC · Jun 17, 2023}
Putin meets with African leaders as Russia confirms nukes in Belarus
^{— Giorgio Leali · POLITICO · Jun 17, 2023}
Putin lectures African leaders seeking to mediate in Ukraine
^{— Kevin Liffey, Andrew Heavens, Andrew Cawthorne · Reuters · Jun 17, 2023}

... But the efforts are commendable, more please, even though it doesn't seem like more will come of it.

... but we agree that the goal here is not "Ukraine winning" in any military sense. — boethius

The unfortunate view that some leaders have is that the war goal is about "Ukraine not losing", but not "Russia losing". And before someone comments that Russia losing is absurd as if that would mean Ukrainian tanks in the Red Square, I would again refer to history: Russia losing like in the Russo-Japanese war, the Polish-Soviet war or in the first Chechen war. Or in WW1.

Though, if Kyiv had nuclear weaponry at its disposal, then the Kremlin would have to rethink. — jorndoe

Something that the Ukrainians can be bitter about.

The Russians have a narrative about the war and their narrative is different to our narrative! It's narratives and turtles all the way down. But the Russian Turtle is offical, whereas ours is organic and trans-renewable.

Thus we are not witnessing an "NATO-US Conflict with Russia over Ukraine" what we are really witnessing is the opening gambit of an unprovoked Russian Imperialist expansion. Any other interpretation is an example of the kind of propaganda that Putin's bots propagated during the 2016 Presidential Election.

We in the West are motivated solely by the truth, our love for freedom and human rights.

Greetings from Julian Assange - HMP Belmarsh London UK

Thus we are not witnessing an "NATO-US Conflict with Russia over Ukraine" what we are really witnessing is the opening gambit of an unprovoked Russian Imperialist expansion. — yebiga

Exactly.

The real problem here is that Russia has no other identity as a state than an imperial one.

Russia is not a nation state. And it fears, or it's leadership fears, that it cannot have any other identity than the imperial one, that it has to be tightly centralized or otherwise it would somehow face utter doom. If it eases with the centralized control, it will break up. If it would be more multicultural or give more autonomy to the regions, it would break up. Or so the Russian thinking of the present elite goes. Hence Russia totally failed in creating a Russian version of the British Commonwealth with CIS. Hence now tries to use military might.

And what is worse is that the leader of Russia thinks that the dissolution of the Empire, when the Soviet Union collapsed, is somehow repairable. That the whole collapse was an unfortunate mistake, something totally repairable and recoverable. Hence the talk about the "artificiality" of Ukraine as a nation. And now the talk of "Novorossiya" and how Crimea is part of Russia, something quite similar to 19th Century Imperialism.

This just makes Russia walk steadfastly towards a disaster. Just as the supporters of the last Czar argued that the solution was for the Czar to hold on to his power given by divine right and not give one inch to the heretic liberal "Western" reforms, because autocracy of the Czar made the Russia Empire so great, so are the same movements now restarted and preach of the greatness of Russia.

It's narratives and turtles all the way down. — yebiga

Reads p0m0'ish. I'm guessing the Bakhmutians beg to differ.

Motyl opines:

Putin’s ‘Big Lie’ Might Be a Scheme to Exit the Ukraine War
^{— Alexander Motyl · 19FortyFive · Jun 19, 2023}

One might hope, but it runs contrary to their "new reality", so far anyway. Peskov's utterings are odd, though.

You will either defeat the enemy as a single fist with our Motherland, or the indelible shame of cowardice, collaboration and betrayal will engulf your family. — Maxim Ivanov (WION · May 30, 2023)

Meanwhile, there have been some rumors on the street that Russian extremists are (ever) on the move (has come up prior in the thread); they want to assimilate Ukraine.

Russia’s shifting far right: the war party
^{— Oleg Ignatov · Lowy Institute · Apr 5, 2023}
Russian ultranationalists think Putin's response to the Moscow drone attacks and border raids shows he's 'out of touch with reality'
^{— Chris Panella · Business Insider · Jun 1, 2023}

Not sure how much to put into this stuff, though it's clear enough that there are extremists that the Kremlin has not "censored" away (selective application). Medvedev's crazy public outbursts don't help; he doesn't seem into exiting either, but maybe he just parrots whatever (he thinks) Putin wants.

Imperial Russia?
Despite recently closing hundreds of bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US still maintains nearly 800 military bases in more than 70 countries and territories abroad.

Here is a list* of the countries bombed and/or invaded by the United States from the end of the Second World War to 2020:
Afghanistan 1998, 2001-
Bosnia 1994, 1995
Cambodia 1969-70
China 1945-46
Congo 1964
Cuba 1959-1961
El Salvador 1980s
Korea 1950-53
Guatemala 1954, 1960, 1967-69
Indonesia 1958 Laos 1964-73
Grenada 1983
Iraq 1991-2000s, 2015-
Iran 1987
Korea 1950-53
Kuwait 1991
Lebanon 1983, 1984
Libya 1986, 2011-
Nicaragua 1980s
Pakistan 2003, 2006- Palestine 2010
Panama 1989
Peru 1965
Somalia 1993, 2007-08, 2010-
Sudan 1998
Syria 2014-
Vietnam 1961-73
Yemen 2002, 2009-
Yugoslavia 1999
Note that these countries represent roughly one-third of the people on earth.


Behold the scores of military coups and color revolutions, the manipulations of elections, where senior figures of the United States openly reveled in their memoirs, boasting of their achievements in Iran, Pakistan, Bolivia, Guatemala... Or witness the economic sanctions that swiftly follow whenever some impoverished nation dares to nationalize its infrastructure.

With the disintegration of the USSR, the compassionate American Empire no longer deigns to offer a rational pretext for the annihilation of nations. Amateur scriptwriters conjure up fairy stories of chemical attacks, yellow-cake deliveries, and terror cells.

Karl Rove, in his succinct elucidation to the esteemed New Yorker Magazine back in 2004, unveiled the truth: "We are now an empire, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you study that reality—judiciously, I might add—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study as well, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors...and all of you will be left to just study what we do."

Our record stands as testimony. Even to this day, the United States maintains an extrajudicial penal facility in Guantanamo Bay. Openly celebrated is the fact that the enemy combatants held there are exempt from the protections of the Geneva Convention. For those with the fortitude, perusing the Wikileaks files on Guantanamo Bay will lay bare the depth of depravity to which those acting on our behalf have sunk. History shall not be kind. It takes an extraordinary level of projection and self-delusion to believe that the villain isn't the figure in the mirror, but rather someone "out there" who might begin emulating your example.

The development and sustenance of the standard of living we have come to expect in the Western World demanded toil and intelligence, but let us not forget that it has been built upon a foundation of organized pillage, exploitation, and the perpetual impoverishment of the rest of the globe. Whatever flaws or ambitions Russia may possess, they are but a low-level, monotonous hum in comparison. And what sin does Russia truly bear, other than its resistance to Western attempts at exploitation? What is Putin's sin, except for his refusal to let mad oligarchs infiltrate politics, unlike our own, who have entirely subverted and corrupted our democratic institutions?

As for Ukraine, the vast majority of Westerners would not have been able to locate it on a map prior to the war. Just as most of us cannot pinpoint Sudan, Liberia, or the myriad warring African countries. Even now, when a Ukrainian soldier falls in a forest, he makes no sound. The reason the war in Ukraine persists is solely due to Washington's intervention. It was Washington who scuttled a drafted peace agreement that had been initially agreed upon by both Russia and Ukraine back in March 2022. Cease the flow of Western weaponry and money, and the conflict will dissipate within a week.

Who can discern the cause of our collective psychopathy? Perhaps it is the overabundance of social media, prescription drugs, something lurking in our sustenance, or the fluoride within our water... All I know is that we have become incapable of engaging in rational discourse. Decency is jettisoned when the prevailing narrative is challenged. It is met with outrage, hysteria, shunning, witch hunts, ad hominem attacks, or the hollow invocation of emotional platitudes—anything but a reasoned exchange.

This pattern of behavior first emerged in response to Trump's electoral triumph. Yet, it has transcended the Orange Man: we witnessed it in the aftermath of the Brexit vote, it pervaded the BLM movement, the # metoo movement, the reaction to Jordan Peterson's ascent to prominence, and the condemnation of those who refused COVID vaccines. It instinctively emerges when anyone dares to question climate change or suggests that Putin, too, may possess human qualities or that Russia may be gaining ground.

To resolve complex issues, one must honestly identify and analyze obstacles and problems as they arise. It is impossible to emerge victorious in war or overcome any peer competitor if one is incapable of acknowledging uncomfortable truths. We have become what the USSR was, what the Ottoman Empire became, what every empire inevitably devolves into—ossified! Like those lost empires, we too are trading on the mythology of past glories. Sadly, the world has changed, the myths have lost their lustre. Our ardour for Freedom and Human Rights have gone the way of Jesus - empty unfashionable platitudes. The Empire now wears no clothes. The world should rejoice but for the fact that this Weekend at Bernie's Administration could well decide to take the whole world down with it.

Nice post. :ok:

Who can discern the cause of our collective psychopathy? Perhaps it is the overabundance of social media, prescription drugs, something lurking in our sustenance, or the fluoride within our water... All I know is that we have become incapable of engaging in rational discourse. Decency is jettisoned when the prevailing narrative is challenged. It is met with outrage, hysteria, shunning, witch hunts, ad hominem attacks, or the hollow invocation of emotional platitudes—anything but a reasoned exchange.

This pattern of behavior first emerged in response to Trump's electoral triumph. — yebiga

My impression is that Trump's election, who ran directly against the neocon establishment, caused said political elite to press the panic button, and ramp up the propaganda.

Propaganda slowly drives people mad. It's literally the manipulating behavior of a psychopath, but applied on a societal scale. Lying, gaslighting, different kinds of blackmail, etc.

Regular people just aren't equipped to deal with that kind of malevolence.

They will subconciously realize something is wrong - they get nervous, anxious, frustrated, etc. - but the propaganda machine accounts for that as well by readily presenting scapegoats upon which those emotions can be projected.

And this is only one arm of the propaganda machine.


The other arm involves whipping people up into a self-righteous frenzy in pursuit of goals set by the political elite. These are essentially appeals to people's sense of moral superiority, seeking to bind their ideology directly to people's ego. Once the ideology is bound to their sense of self, they cannot leave the ideology without cutting off a part of themselves. This is why every discussion with such people turns hostile; they are in psychological survival mode. Losing means having to cut off a part of their ego.

Note the eerie similarity to the methods of nazism and communism; the assigning of scapegoats and the appeal to moral superiority.

Regular people just aren't equipped to deal with that kind of malevolence. — Tzeentch

I think there is a lot to this. People have to sense in their bones that their own government is gaslighting them - it's been over 20 years now of relentless fabrication. We must censor our own lying eyes and ears.

Consciously confronting and acknowledging these doubts and perceptions is - as you say - hard for people. Their entire world will shatter and something of themselves will die.

When I visited the Eastern Bloc back in the 1980s, People en masse understood that everything official and everything on TV and Radio was all a crock. People dealt with it by never talking about politics. They talked about anything and everything else. At work and amongst officials they would echo the official line. Only with the very closest of friends might they have a candid political discussion but they would have the TV volume up, the curtains drawn before they would whisper to each other.

More than a hint of this kafkaesque atmosphere threatened to become normalised during the Pandemic restrictions where sinister heavy handed policing, censorship on social media and 24/7 fear porn.

Yes, The idea of the Russian nation is very different from let's say the US.

And I think many Americans or Westerners simply don't understand this. They just assume that Russia is in many ways just like their own country.

Note that these countries represent roughly one-third of the people on earth. — yebiga

The British have fought with a lot more people of the World than Americans, actually. So the I guess the US isn't yet the baddest of them all. Leave that to the English. At least historically. :smirk:

We have become what the USSR was, — yebiga

You'll be there when the US invades a NATO country that is trying to leave NATO.

But for the while, the US isn't there yet.

Reports from the ground

He wanted an adventure. He ended up in Ukraine’s most brutal war zone
^{— Christopher Miller · Financial Times · Feb 16, 2023}

We can’t know what will come tomorrow. So we live for today. Why not celebrate and have a party? Maybe there will be no tomorrow. — Igor Moroz

↑ Anton, Christopher (author), Igor


The Kremlin is on a roll

In latest crackdown on critics, Russia declares World Wide Fund for Nature ‘undesirable’
^{— AP · Feb 21, 2023}


, did you ever get to whipping up a fresh thread on that stuff?
(I didn't notice if you did anyway. But please keep the p0m0 at a tolerable level. :smile:)
May 18, 2023, May 24, 2023, May 26, 2023

If it eases with the centralized control, it will break up. If it would be more multicultural or give more autonomy to the regions, it would break up. Or so the Russian thinking of the present elite goes. — ssu

Yeah, hence the multiple/repeated nationalist appeals from their political top (plus some that include those "sibling" Ukrainians), their public "advertising", and the lenience towards nationalist extremists, contrary to somewhat more moderate voices/critiques getting the hammer. Some has come up prior in the thread, though there's likely more to it. The Ukrainians said "No" and the world by and large ack'd.

Russia is not a nation state. And it fears, or it's leadership fears, that it cannot have any other identity than the imperial one, that it has to be tightly centralized or otherwise it would somehow face utter doom. If it eases with the centralized control, it will break up. If it would be more multicultural or give more autonomy to the regions, it would break up. Or so the Russian thinking of the present elite goes. Hence Russia totally failed in creating a Russian version of the British Commonwealth with CIS. Hence now tries to use military might. — ssu

I have to disagree here. Russians comprise almost 80% of the FR's population. The second largest nationality group is Tatars, which comprise 3% of the population, but they are spread over a large area. There are relatively few republics where one nationality (other than Russian) is predominant, mostly in Caucasus. This is a result of USRR policies: there were deportations, forced 'russification', repressions etc. specifically so that the central authority could not be challenged. For the same reason they were made completely dependent economically on Moscow. But this is not the only reason: in some areas the population is so sparse that they have to be sustained with significant external support.

For those reasons any major break-up is rather unrealistic. Sure, if the center gets weak enough, there might be a few break-away republics (especially if their neighbors will have interest in them), but it would not change much geopolitically. Most of those who wanted to leave, did so in 1991.

Goodie. (PTSD notwithstanding.)

West needs strategy to tie Ukraine aid to corruption progress, thinktank says
^{— Patrick Wintour · The Guardian · Jun 20, 2023}
EU says Ukraine is making progress with reforms and on track to membership talks
^{— AP · Jun 22, 2023}

Let's note down accountabilities of the invader while we're at it.

Another astounding video from Prigozhin:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgZ3dqAAOa8
(unfortunately, I could not find a version with English captions)

In short, he claims Russians are losing badly in Zaporozhzhia, claims that Ukrainians did not shell civilians in Donetsk since 2014 and did not plan to attack LPR and DPR with NATO forces and that corrupt Ministry of Defence officials practically duped Putin into starting the war...

Is he believeable? No, of course not - like everyone else, he has political agenda. However, it should be noted that if an ordinary Russian said those things, he would be arrested and tried rather quickly. The fact that Prigozhin practically negates all the official reasons for the war (in one of earlier videos he said he did not see any 'Nazis' in Ukraine) and walks free, means that either he is already so powerful that he cannot be touched, or that he is preparing ground for some kind of an exit strategy for Putin in the time-proven tradition ('tzar good, boyars bad'), in which MoD (i.e. Shoigu and Gerasimov) are the scapegoats, Putin somehow saves his faces and everyone pretends that they had actually no beef with Ukrainians...

, it was also reported elsewhere ...

Russian mercenary boss says Moscow's war in Ukraine based on lies
^{— Andrew Osborn · Reuters · Feb 23, 2023}
Wagner chief accuses Moscow of lying to public about Ukraine
^{— Pjotr Sauer · The Guardian · Feb 23, 2023}

The Defence Ministry is trying to deceive society and the president and tell us a story about how there was crazy aggression from Ukraine and that they were planning to attack us with the whole of NATO [...] — Prigozhin

Sort of echoed by some Russian soldiers (even if somewhat questionable) ...

Demoralised Russian soldiers tell of anger at being ‘duped’ into war
^{— Luke Harding · The Guardian · Mar 4, 2022}
Dmitry Mishov, Russian airman who defected, gives BBC interview
^{— Ilya Barabanov, Kateryna Khinkulova · BBC · Jun 12, 2023}

I am a military officer, my duty is to protect my country from aggression. I don't have to become an accomplice in a crime. No one explained to us why this war started, why we had to attack Ukrainians and destroy their cities? In the military no one believes the authorities. They can see what is really happening. They are not some civilians in front of the telly. The military do not believe official reports, because they are simply not true. — Dmitry Mishov

Putin might be in too deep. An exit would be :up: though.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/23/wagner-chief-accuses-russias-military-of-attack-and-says-evil-leadership-must-be-stopped
"Russia investigates Wagner chief for ‘armed mutiny’ after call for attack on military"

My wife is on Twitter and telling me some weird stuff is going on in Russia right now.

The response by Surovikin makes sense as a way to cut out support from Wagner troops. I wonder how the heavy recruitment from prisons will play into this. They aren't your "go along to get along" mobis from Vladivostok.

Prigozhin is not stupid and he certainly is not insane. He has no chance to take down Putin, but he does have a chance to make him share some of the power and that is likely his play. I suppose quite a few of Russian soldiers are still willing to die for Putin and their country, but those who are willing to die for Shoigu are very few.

this is not an armed rebellion, but a march of justice — Prigozhin (Jun 23, 2023)

Prigozhin has made accusations before.

The [Rostov] border guards came out to meet and hugged our fighters — Prigozhin (Jun 23, 2023)

I don't have a sense of what is going on beyond what emerges from time to time. Just observing parts that don't fit with other parts.

Wasn't aware of Medvedev's "cult of victory" which was invalidated in 2012 just before the end of his presidency. Similar free/open critique/discussion today would be :up:.

Strengthening Ukraine is not tantamount to weakening Russia. The tsarist and Soviet past cannot be defined by Moscow alone. It is a past shared with other countries, whose perceptions differ greatly from those of the Kremlin. If Russia wants safe and stable borders, it should offer the same to its neighbors. — Rudolf G Adam

Russia and a return to Soviet-style central planning
^{— Michael Marder · The Japan Times · Jan 15, 2023}