We forget just what have been the real military victories of Russia and Soviet Union after World War 2. The really successful large military operation was in 1968 the Occupation of Czechoslovakia. Such large attack that the Czech army didn't raise it's finger and not even the Czech people dared to fight with against the tanks as had the Hungarians in 1956. There wasn't any war, just a surrender, basically protests. — ssu

And before WW2 there were the three Baltic states that USSR occupied without a fight. The disastrous Winter War that preceded this didn't discourage the Soviets - and the gamble payed off. They installed puppet governments, which promptly held "elections," followed by a vote to become new Soviet Socialist Republics (with 90+% voting in favor).

So yeah, they've learned all the wrong lessons from history, if they learned at all.

I don't think people generally think of Putin as mad insane.
At least, outside of the usual (sociopathic) authoritarian strategizing/manipulation.
Anyway, so, what's the simplest coherent explanation? (Or a coherent simpler explanation?)
Attempting to push Russia up the food chain? — jorndoe

Insane - no. Isolated, poorly informed, surrounded by a small circle yes-men who tell him only what he wants to hear - much more likely.

Continuing the FSB theme, here are a couple of articles in a Russian investigative publication. The first is an OP by a journalist who has been covering Russian security services for many years, written in May (English version):

How Putin Decided to Go to War

Why was the war destined for failure from the very beginning, what sources of information did president Putin rely on before starting it, and why did nobody in the Federal Security Service [FSB] of the Russian Federation tell him the truth about the real situation in Ukraine

"As ridiculous as it sounds, the decision to go to war was made by the most uninformed person that could possibly have taken it. The president," my source sneers.

And a follow-up of sorts, published today and not yet translated:

Who controls Russian troops in Ukraine

Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu is out of favor with Vladimir Putin. The president confers directly with commanders charged with the conduct of the military operation.

The fact that the leadership is poorly informed is admitted even by the ex-Minister of State Security of the DPR, former commander of the Vostok brigade Alexander Khodakovsky. “One of the main problems with a closed system that took shape over decades and that is permeated by competing interest groups is an abject fear of being the bearer of bad news. Some highly placed generals who are capable of admitting certain issues in an intimate setting, when asked why they don't report them, reply: 'I'd be sacked if I did...'”

You are still on mute

This is a common tack among demagogues and propagandists: emphasize (or fabricate) uncertainty, throw up not one but many alternative narratives. Anything is possible, there's too much propaganda on both sides, we will never know the truth, it's all so confusing... When your position is weak, just upset the board.

You're on mute.

As I've repeated many times throughout this thread — boethius

I really don't know why you bother

Even the FSB personnel don't seem happy to go to Ukraine — ssu

Speaking of FSB, here is the next installment of WoPo's investigative articles on pre-war intelligence: FSB errors played crucial role in Russia's failed war plans in Ukraine

An agency whose domain includes internal security in Russia as well as espionage in the former Soviet states, the FSB has spent decades spying on Ukraine, attempting to co-opt its institutions, paying off officials and working to impede any perceived drift toward the West. No aspect of the FSB’s intelligence mission outside Russia was more important than burrowing into all levels of Ukrainian society.

And yet, the agency failed to incapacitate Ukraine’s government, foment any semblance of a pro-Russian groundswell or interrupt President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hold on power. Its analysts either did not fathom how forcefully Ukraine would respond, Ukrainian and Western officials said, or did understand but couldn’t or wouldn’t convey such sober assessments to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Commanders are in a pickle: officially they are not at war, and so peacetime laws apply. Which means that they can't force anyone to fight. Any contract serviceman can quit at any time and for any reason. At most, they can be prosecuted for insubordination, which is not a very serious charge.

Then again, laws-schmoes. At first, commanders were pressuring soldiers to stay, threatening all manner of (fictitious) legal consequences. Then they began detaining refuseniks in unofficial prisons, beating and starving them into submission. Or they just refuse to accept their resignations. According to some soldiers from the infamous 64th infantry brigade, some 700 of their ranks are trying, mostly unsuccessfully, to quit. Even those whose contracts have expired often cannot leave. Those few who manage to obtain a leave of absence and go back to Russia promise to come back, but of course, none do. It's like Catch-22, but even more absurd and tragic.

A big article in WoPo about US prewar intel: As Russia prepared to invade Ukraine, U.S. struggled to convince Zelensky, allies of threat (If you run into a paywall, try opening in incognito/private window, or turn off Javascript, or use something like the Reader View in Firefox.)

This account, in previously unreported detail, shines new light on the uphill climb to restore U.S. credibility, the attempt to balance secrecy around intelligence with the need to persuade others of its truth, and the challenge of determining how the world’s most powerful military alliance would help a less-than-perfect democracy on Russia’s border defy an attack without NATO firing a shot.

The first in a series of articles examining the road to war and the military campaign in Ukraine, it is drawn from in-depth interviews with more than three dozen senior U.S., Ukrainian, European and NATO officials about a global crisis whose end is yet to be determined. Some spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence and internal deliberations.

Finally! :up:

When the documentary is saying "sanctions are working", first think what sanctions working would really mean?

Would Russia really stop the fighting and accept a peace favorable to Ukraine? I think not, yet "sanctions working" obviously would have to do that. — ssu

If we are talking about sanctions as a tool to influence immediate decision-making, such as starting or escalating hostilities, then it is the threat of sanctions that sometimes works (and it does sometimes work). When deterrence fails, sanctions still have to be levied in order to maintain their future credibility, but they will almost never force a reversal. That is where we are now: sanctions, as you say, will not force Russia to stop its aggression and return the territory it has seized.

That said, success or failure can be hard to attribute for counterfactual events. You will know when sanctions fail. But, for example, if Putin did not order the attack when he did, would that be attributable to the threat of sanctions? How would we know? Even now we don't know for sure whether sanctions or the threat of further sanctions have deterred Russia from doing something it could have done (like deploying chemical weapons - not likely in any event, in my opinion, but just as an example).

Sanctions can have other effects than influencing decisions here and now. The most obvious effect of the present sanctions is in degrading Russia's war potential. That effect will be mostly delayed, but some of it is arguably felt even now. Russia has spent much of its high-precision munition stocks, and rebuilding will be challenging, partly due to sanctions. They are now reduced to lobbing dated anti-aircraft and anti-ship missiles at ground structures, which is far from optimal. They also have a shortage of drones, NVGs, navigation, communication and other high-tech equipment - same problem here.

Other sanctions seem like pointless virtue-signalling, punishing people and organizations that have no power to influence events. It could be that even those sanctions will have an indirect effect by provoking disaffection, social tensions, brain drain (that last one is very evident), and thus gradually weakening the regime. This is a highly uncertain territory though, as the effect can be, and likely is, precisely the opposite.

:lol: I have a like/hate relationship with Dickens. After reading Copperfield some years ago I decided that I'd had enough of him for a while. I get the impression that he was a piece of work in real life.

:yikes:

I'm not sure if Russia has the LNG capacity to export all its gas through all its non-EU pipelines and arctic LNG plants — boethius

It doesn't. Russia's existing LNG capacity is a minor fraction of its pipeline capacity. Since Russia doesn't have mature LNG technology of its own and its foreign partners have pulled out of expansion projects, it won't be able to ramp up its LNG exports much further.

On the economic "sanctions"-front, I think that Russia has played it's cards very well. It simply is just such a large supplier of natural resources that the World cannot simply disregard it. The logical way for the West to counter this would be to try a push the price of oil and gas down by increasing production, but that would go against what has been set as goal to curb climate change. German energy policy of having relied to Russian energy with closing down nuclear plants and now having to open coal plants show how clueless the West actually is here. — ssu

If Europe goes through with its divestment from Russian energy, then Russia's game doesn't look so good in the medium term. Oil and gas are not like gold: moving them takes a lot of specialized infrastructure that simply does not exist today and won't come into existence any time soon. And Asia's appetite for Russian energy isn't bottomless either: they'll take what they can if the discount is big enough, but they have other supplies as well.

Besides, energy isn't everything, and the rest of Russian economy looks pretty dismal. It will survive, but it needs more than mere survival in order to continue to support long and bloody wars of aggression.

Yes. Although there was the Transnistrian war in 1990-1992, which was rather similar (as the war in Donbas 2014-2022). — ssu

The "Transnistrian war" was hardly a war: the scale and the forces involved were tiny compared to Donbas. There were, I think, a few old Soviet tanks that were rolled out at one point to intimidate the Moldovan forces - and that proved to be enough. There wasn't much will or ability to fight on the Moldovan side.

The bigger player here that is and hopefully will stay inactive is of course Belarus. There are Belarussian fighters fighting in the lines of Ukraine, questionable support for the current leadership (after the massive demonstrations put down with violence) and basically no reason for Belarus to attack it's southern neighbor. Hence it's likely that the current situation will prevail with Belarus giving Russian forces a ground to operate, but won't join themselves the fighting. — ssu

Even from what little can be gathered inside Belarus, it is clear that people there are dead-set against their country entering this war - even those who take the pro-Russian position. Of course, if push comes to shove, no one will ask Belorussians what they want, just as no one asked the Russians. The difference is quiet opposition on one side and quiet acquiescence on the other side of the border. And, as you noted, Lukashenko is sitting on bayonets as it is; dragging his people into Russia's war against their will is the last thing he wants.

So far, Kremlin has been accommodating, but one wonders: how long will Putin tolerate this wily, self-willed and treacherous vassal? Will he at some point decide that it would be so much more convenient to have a loyal silovik in charge? Of course, taking over a personalistic, top-down security and patronage system from a man who has been at the helm even longer than Putin would not be easy and smooth. But does Putin realize this? His delusional ideas of how easily he would take over Ukraine do not instill confidence in his judgement.

On the other hand, what could Belarus bring to the table if it was forced to enter the war right now? Perhaps 20 thousand of poorly armed and unwilling conscripts. Would it be worth the trouble?

Rather, there have been wild fluctuations of climate through geological time far larger than can be accounted for by variations of insolation. The history of humanity has been one of unusual climate stability sufficiently long for the effects of milankovitch cycles to become noticeable. — unenlightened

You are losing track of the relative time scales here. The history of humanity is a point on the geological timescale. We could be living right smack in the middle of one of those "wild fluctuations of climate" that you mentioned and not notice it.

Ask yourself, SophistiCat, does Russia or anybody really listen to the Transnistrians when deciding on these matters?

In fact before February 24th for a long time things in the Donbas were rather similar to what you stated above from Transnistria: people could move back and forth to Ukraine and Ukraine even paid pensions to people in the Donbas People's Republics. I'm sure the people that actually supported Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics back in 2014 aren't so enthusiastic about how things are going now. — ssu

It's not a fair comparison: life in Donbas was pretty miserable even before the invasion. And among those remaining there, quite a few did want to be absorbed into Russia already, instead of remaining in limbo, as it were. Or else they didn't much care one way or another. And even now there are those on both sides of the front line who are convinced, despite everything they've had to go through, that Russia did the right thing (and should have done it much sooner).

But I take your point: of course Transnistrians will not have a say if Putin decides to "liberate" them next. But neither will they do anything to help. All that "remind[ing] of their plans to secede from Moldova and join Russia" is only because they believe that they are safe for now.

You know it's a frozen conflict from there existing a Bureau of Reintegration... — ssu

Yeah, and no one appears to be keen on reigniting it. Russia has its hands full with its present war, which it doesn't know how to end without losing face. It doesn't have a common border with Moldova. For an invasion it would need to establish a land corridor through southern Ukraine, which now appears to be a remote possibility.

Moldovan army is pretty much non-existent. They know that in the (unlikely) event of a full-scale conflict with Russia they would be crushed like a bug.

Transnistria is the least interested in upsetting the status quo. All these years they've been left alone, enjoying generous subsidies from Russia in the form of virtually free gas and a share of the Trans-Balkan pipeline. On the other side Transnistrians can travel freely to mainland Moldova (and from there visa-free to the EU), since most Transnistrians have Moldovan passports. While in theory, people there are staunchly pro-Russian, having been fed a steady diet of Russian TV, they like things to stay just as they are.

All this sabre-rattling is nothing more than a halfhearted diversionary maneuver from Russia, I think.

The fake referendums would not be legitimate even by the Russian law. According to the Russian Constitution, parts of other countries cannot join Russia without those countries' consent. That is why the de facto annexation of Crimea was legally framed as a two-step maneuver: first a "referendum" was staged on Crimea's independence from Ukraine, then the newly sovereign Republic of Crimea asked to become part of Russia. The same calculation was seen behind the official recognition of the breakaway Donbas "republics" shortly before the invasion. Now it looks like they are abandoning even that thin veneer of legitimacy.

Or at least that's the plan... It's hard to see how they are going to pull it off within the declared time frame. Russia controls just over half of the Donetsk region (which is claimed by one of the self-proclaimed republics), and its advance there has been glacial. And lately the Right-bank part of the Kherson region, including the city of Kherson itself, has been under pressure.

Does solidness exist?

Yes or no? It's a simple question. — Watchmaker

When you put it like this, this question will land you in hot water with some philosophers. A better way to ask would be: Is anything solid?

The obvious answer, which I think is the right one, is: Yes, of course! This would be the right answer if you mean "solid" in the usual sense. If you mean it in an idiosyncratic or specialist sense, then you need to be more specific.

I understand electrons aren't solid, but what of protons and neutrons, et al? Are there really tiny dense indivisible b-b's that make up matter. It seems that everything I read about this, implies that ultimately nothing is really solid. — Watchmaker

Here you seem to be asking: is the usual sense of solidity applicable to microscopic entities postulated by fundamental physics? And the equally obvious answer is: Of course not! But what implications does this have towards mind-body dualism? None that I can see.

I'm trying to think of a kind of explanation that's not about relationships to other things. — Tate

Well, any explanation relates something to something else - that's just how such discourse works. But "something else" doesn't always have to be something in the causal chain, or even something from the same category of things, such as explaining events in terms of other events or objects in terms of other objects. For example, a teleological explanation would relate events, actions, states of affairs to intents, goals, values.

Would breaking a thing down into parts and relating the parts to each other serve as an explanation? — Tate

Yes, that's a kind of explanation that we employ sometimes, isn't it?


Of course, any explanation could in turn be challenged, ad infinitum. But that's a rather obvious observation.

Explanations come in various forms. Some, but not all explanations take the form of a causal narrative, like your God example. Since causal explanations relate different parts of the same world together, your conclusion holds: you cannot give a causal explanation to everything put together, because your explanans would then leave nothing to serve as an explanandum other than itself, and causa sui is a trivial and unsatisfactory explanation.

But what about other kinds of explanation?

Interesting topic. Entropy, macro- and microstates are notoriously tricky subjects, even to specialists.

Would it be useful to consider a four dimensional (i.e. time inclusive) form of entropy?

Entropy is often defined as the number of possible microstates (arrangements of particles) consistent with an observed macrostate.

Time entropy would be the number of possible past states consistent with an observed present state. Is this potentially useful? — Count Timothy von Icarus

It is not very clear to me what you mean by this formulation. A microstate is consistent with a macrostate in the sense that it is consistent with the macroscopic variables that make up the macrostate, such as temperature and pressure. In general, those state variables change over time, so that past microstates will not be consistent with the present macrostate in the same sense in which the present microstate partition is consistent with it (except in the static limit).

Perhaps what you have in mind are past microstates that, when evolved into the present, would be consistent with the present macrostate? In other words, past microstates that evolve into any of the microstates that partition the present macrostate.

Now, let me backtrack a bit and reexamine your definition of entropy. A given macrostate induces a particular statistical distribution of microstates. When a system is at a thermodynamic equilibrium (and thus at its maximum entropy), all its microstates have the same probability of occurrence. Then and only then can we calculate the entropy simply by counting the number of microstates. In all other cases* entropy can be calculated, per Gibbs' definition, as a sum of probabilities of microstates in a statistical ensemble. Given a time discretization, we can then add up past microstate distributions leading to the present distribution to obtain your "time entropy."

Am I on the right track?

* By "all other cases" I mean a rather restricted class of pseudo-equilibrium states of matter, where the system is weakly interacting with its surroundings, and changes are relatively slow. This is the context for all talk of entropy, macro- and microstates.

It's worth noting that for use in some physics problems, entropy's definition is altered to be: the total possible number of microstates consistent with all the information we have about a system, such that, as you complete more measurements and gain information about a system the "entropy" goes down because your information continually rules out certain microstates.

This may be a better definition because the number of potential microstates for a fully unobserved system is obviously infinite. Observing a "macrostate" is getting information about a system, which is then reducing the possible configurations the system can have. So while the definitions seem different, it isn't clear to me that they actually are. The idea of naively observed "macrostates" may be one of those concepts we inherited from "common sense," that work well enough for some problems, but hurt us in the long run. — Count Timothy von Icarus

This epistemic take on entropy comes information theory. Information-theoretic and physical entropies are related, but they are not the same - the differences stemming mainly from their uses in their respective fields. Physical entropy - the kind that enters physical equations - is not a function of information that we have about a system at a given time. The choice of macroscopic observables and microscopic degrees of freedom is subjective, to a degree. However, once the choice is made at a high level, the rest objectively follows.

lol. I am not even disagreeing with the idea that we should be more concerned with that which we can influence, or at least that which can influence us - and for the most part, that's how it plays out anyway. Within reason, such natural tendencies to be more concerned with and feel more responsible over that which is closest to you are a good thing*. But, as with everything, things can get ugly or ridiculous in excess. Parochialism driven to excess leads in some cases to selfish indifference to suffering and injustice, and in others - to obsessive, hateful conspirology, in which the object of obsession obscures everything else in sight.

* Italians have a cosy term for this - campanilismo (campanilism)

Unless we are Russian (and even then it's hard, given the current regime in Russia) we can't do much about it. And merely saying how horrible Russia is, over and over, is convenient moralizing.

I draw exceptions with people living next to Russia, but besides that, its just much easier to condemn Russia, than what's happening in say, Yemen, which is almost entirely the fault of the US. But, people wave flags, for good and ill. — Manuel

And yet you started this discussion about a "Ukraine crisis" - events in which the main participants are Russia and Ukraine (in that order, since Russia initiated the crisis and, being the more powerful actor, commands more initiative and holds more responsibility). If your position is that people should only discuss the goings-on in their home countries, then why did you open this discussion in the first place? If you only want to talk about how bad the US is (a perfectly legitimate topic) then why do this under the pretense of discussing something else?

Or we can point out that nothing fundamental about Russian culture has changed since they were the world's heroes for overthrowing communism. — Baden

Yeah... Not long after that they were doing in Chechnya pretty much what they are doing in Ukraine today.

That's not to say that something is wrong with Russians in particular, as opposed to the rest of the world (who are "Russians" anyway - all who were born within Russian state borders?) That's a naive and unhelpful way of thinking.

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.

Because America — Isaac

Sums up this discussion.

Posters should argue in good faith. But if we were to mod everything we thought was false, we'd not unjustifiably be accused of censorship and bias. — Baden

These posters (Street, Isaac, Benkei) are not just arguing in bad faith. They are trolling and intentionally derailing the thread. They made it clear from the start that they are not interested in the actual topic, and instead want continue to talk about what they talk about in every other political thread: the villainy of US, the evils of capitalism, etc.

Can't we just not feed them — Olivier5

Apparently not...

ISW and others have reported that loyal Russian military bloggers who generally support the war (such as "Strelkov," ex-FSB and former leader of "DNR") have been increasingly critical of Russian war effort.

And thus Putin's narrative (propaganda-style) has been adopted and propagated. :up: :grin: Worked. — jorndoe

Somehow not interested to reply to such bullshit. — ssu

Good idea. I don't get why anyone would even want to give the time of day to these fuckwits. The less attention they get the better.

Dude, you are debating someone who believes that nations have a natural right to conquer and subjugate other nations based on their ethnic origin. I don't know why this neo-Nazi scum hasn't been banned yet. At least don't legitimize him.

January 2021

Russia: OMG! We suddenly realized that NATO has been expanding in Europe since 1997! And Ukraine might some day join NATO too! This is an existential threat! NATO must pull back right now!

Putinverstehers: See what you've done, NATO? Putin feels threatened!

February 2021

Russia: That's it! We can't wait any longer! We have to attack Ukraine right now, before it might some day join NATO and attack us!

Putinverstehers: See what you've done, NATO? Russia's war on Ukraine is totally your fault! You left Russia no choice!

May 2022

Finland & Sweden: We are going to joining NATO now.

NATO: Welcome, Finland & Sweden!

Russia: It's cool, we are not worried.

Russia is still sore about the sinking of their Black Sea flagship and attacks on patrol boats near Snake Island. How else to explain this delirious disinformation campaign on Twitter? But who are these English-language posts aimed at? (Although, given that some posters here have been quite willing to give credence to the most ridiculous Russian propaganda, simply because it validated their favorite narratives, perhaps this isn't as stupid as it looks.)

Putin has publicly demonstrated many times that he basically does not understand what a discussion is. Especially a political one – according to Putin, a discussion of the inferior and the superior shouldn’t take place. And if the subordinate allows it, then he is an enemy. Putin behaves in this way not deliberately, not because he is a tyrant and despot ad natum – he was simply brought up in ways that the KGB drilled in him, and he considers this system ideal, which he has publicly stated more than once. And therefore, as soon as someone disagrees with him, Putin categorically demands "to stop the hysteria." (Hence he refuses to participate in pre-election debates, which are not in his nature, he is not capable of them, he does not know how to make a dialog. He is an exclusive monologist. According to the military model the subordinate must keep silent. A superior talks, but in the mode of a monologue, and then all the inferiors are obliged to pretend that they agree. A sort of ideological hazing, sometimes turning into physical destruction and elimination as it happened to Khodorkovsky). — Anna

This has the ring of truth. And if it is true, there is nothing to be done short of complete military defeat at any cost. It certainly makes more sense than the cries of delusion, stupidity, and pathology that are projected rather too easily in his general direction. — unenlightened

A striking illustration of how Putin talks to his underlings was this bizarre televised spectacle of his Security Council meeting right before the war, in which he sat them all down in front of him like children, in a semicircle, and had them publicly pledge their allegiance and complicity to the course, while scolding and humiliating those who went off script.


link

You have a knack for picking the worst foils for your contributions (I mean, Apollodorus? Really?)

Russian anti-war protestors brave police repressions, sometimes resorting to subtle subversion in an attempt to avoid being arrested.

"Мир! Труд! Май!" (Peace! Labor! May!) used to be a common slogan at Soviet May 1 demonstrations. Here is an updated version at a government-sponsored demonstration today, featuring the omnipresent "Z"wastica:



In contrast, this lone picketer is holding up a sign on which the word Peace is conspicuously absent. (When passersby asked her why there was no "peace", she told them that she could ask them the same question.)



I like this one best (the disappearing letters spell PEACE in millet):

So this rubles-for-gas confrontation that Russia got itself into is pretty bizarre. To be clear, there is zero economic sense in it for Russia - it's pure political posturing. Although Europe says that agreeing to pay for Russian gas in rubles would violate European sanctions against Russia's Central Bank (not to mention that it would violate existing energy contracts), it's not like getting their payment in rubles would somehow cushion the blow from financial sanctions for Russia.

Lately, Russian Central Bank requires all Russian companies to convert 80% of their foreign currency revenue into rubles, whether they need them or not. Gazprom is no exception. And if the government wanted Gazprom to convert all of its European revenue into rubles, it could just order it to do that. The end result would be the same as if its customers were paying it in rubles, except that there wouldn't be all this brouhaha.

Recently news media and analysts have been discussing a reported comment made by some Russian general about Russia's goals in the next phase of the war, which, according to him, consist of taking Donbas and southern Ukraine all the way to Transnistria (a Russian-controlled breakaway border region of Moldova). While many took this to be the new official direction, it's not at all clear whose position this general was expressing and why. Gen. Minnekaev serves in a large military district, but he does not participate in the "special operation," his position has nothing to do with military planning, and he does not commonly give public statements. He made his apparently unsolicited comment at a meeting with local business representatives. Was he just sharing his personal opinion of what Russia should be doing?

These veteran investigators of Russian security services think so. In a recent article on a Russian-language site Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan report on the prevailing attitudes among their contacts in the FSB (the successor of the KGB) and the army. It seems that officers are not happy with the direction the war has taken, and they even criticize Putin himself (in private, mostly). But they don't oppose the war - on the contrary, they want more of it. They are disappointed that the initial push to take Kiev was abandoned. One widely shared video recorded by a veteran special forces officer with a popular Youtube channel urges Putin to wage a total war with airstrikes targeting all of Ukraine's infrastructure. "Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich, please make up your mind: are we fighting a war or jerking off?"

Ukraine has long running issues with extreme corruption and powerful oligarchs holding back any reform, as well as radical ideologies infecting the nation's politics. — Count Timothy von Icarus

That's the one issue Ukraine doesn't have (ironically, given the context). Since the Maidan Revolution in 2014, radicals have signally failed to make any political gains. On the contrary, as @ssu has been pointing out, they have been progressively losing what little hold they had in Ukrainian politics.

In 2014, in the wake of regime change, annexation of Crimea and Russian invasion in Donbass, when one might have expected nationalist sentiments to be running high, the two ultra-nationalist candidates collectively claimed less than 2% of the presidential vote, and none of the far-right parties were able to clear the 5% barrier in the parliamentary elections (although a few of their members won majoritarian seats). Radicals have been losing popular support ever since. The Right Sector - one of the main boogeymen of Russian propaganda - is all but extinct. Svoboda - the largest nationalist party in Ukraine - again failed to make it into the parliament in 2019, winning even fewer votes than in 2014. There is a plethora of far-right movements in Ukraine, but they have virtually no political power.