War: Russia vs. Ukraine?

[TheGlyphstone]

Good grief, does he think he now think he's a Roman Emperor celebrating a Triumph? Maybe he'll even show up at the head of the parade wearing a toga picta and a crown of laurels! 🤦‍♂️

No, is proper Russian. Would be called 'Tzar'.

[Azuresun]

Also, I must say that I'm really concerned about some of the opinions on the war that appeared in Europe in recent days. In Germany, a group of left-leaning intellectuals published an appeal for Germany not to give Ukraine weapons... as this only serves to "escalate the conflict"... and might cause Putin start firing nukes. And nobody wants a nuclear war... so, we need to sacrifice Ukraine to Putin, apparently... This is Munich 1938 all over again 

The thing is, backing down is not an option, even with the stakes that high. Roll over to nuclear bullying, and the message goes out loud and clear to the rest of the world that nukes let you do what you want to your neighbours. Cue a new age of nuclear proliferation.

[Vekseid]

I highly doubt Putin will go the nuclear route.

Anders Puck Nielsen has a fairly good explanation as to his priorities. While he will posture and bluster, nothing short of NATO launching a full-scale invasion is going to cause him to go down that route.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=268zZqs-rvI

I don't necessarily agree that Putin will avoid mobilization at all costs. Probably not on the 9th, and probably not a full mobilization. As losses mount and Belgorod is threatened however, he's going to have more at-home pressure to 'take this conflict seriously', and accepting defeat is also going to jeopardize his position in my opinion.

More notable on the nuke side is that Russia hasn't done anything to mobilize its nuclear forces. Using a nuke means they set a horrific precedent and I suspect their supporters would dwindle to North Korea and Eritrea. Possibly not even those. The US conducting a neutralization strike isn't out of the realm of possibility, and if Russia's nukes are taken out of the game (however horrifically), Russia is done.



To keep an eye on the Russian perspective, I've been following this channel, run by Maxim Katz.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZUBF2PnQVc

Maxim himself seems to think that what will be announced is a "simplified procedure of mobilization during the special operation" or some similar such bullshit. A way to more aggressively recruit from remote areas, and possibly forcing some ethnic minorities to do the fighting proper.

During this conflict so far, Russia's internal critics have had the highest accuracy in terms of predicting their own government's actions, perhaps second only to the Biden administration (and the Biden administration itself doesn't seem to be buying into the mobilization narrative). A few have even been pretty good at predicting America's response.

[stormwyrm]

No, is proper Russian. Would be called 'Tzar'.

And that word itself derives from 'Caesar'.

Hmm... Tsar Vladimir III, Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias. I suppose it fits. Royal houses generally originated from some bastard just like him after all.

[Bezukhov]

I don't know if you guys heard of the rumours for Russia's plans for the coming Victory Day parade?

Apparently, the Russians are considering marching a group of 500 Ukrainian POWs as part of the parade...

If this is true, then - what kind of medieval barbarity is this??? What else, maybe a bunch of captive Ukrainian women in chains, followed by slavemasters cracking whips..

I'm pretty sure Stalin had German POWs marching through the streets of Moscow in 1944. Given Putin's peculiar take on history and his countless clins-d'oeil to certain elements of the Soviet history, it wouldn't surprise me that much...

[Oniya]

Just in case people were confused*, 'Victory Day' is the annual Russian military parade, commemorating the end of World War 2.  Think 'Memorial Day' with more tanks.

*

Especially over on this side of the Atlantic, where our schools spend more time arguing about what parts of history to teach than actually getting to teach it.

[TeamVelma]

And I'm honestly dumbfounded by Pope Francis' comments on the situation. In a new interview, he claims that the war could've been provoked by "NATO barking at Russia's doorstep"... And that he doesn't want to visit Ukraine - but he wants to try meeting Putin...

Russia has always been simultaneously too strong, and too weak.  From its perspective it's pretty much a landlocked country surrounded by powers that are at best neutral, at worst hostile.  Also their political outlook is founded on paranoia and enemies, internal enemies, external enemies, class enemies, ideological enemies... Plus with Putin and Co we have the last of the Cold-War warrior mindset.  So they do feel threatened by NATO expansion, but forget that it is their behaviour, both past and present, that drives it.  Finland is a prime example, decades of careful neutrality, just what Russia likes, a neutral buffer state between them and the West.  Now Finland is expected to apply for NATO membership and all thanks to Putin's actions.

[Beorning]

Jokes about Putin being Caesar aside... guys, if they really do this "parade of POWs" thing, this will be *monstrous*. What kind of semi-civilized country does this sort of thing???

Obviously, Russia is not abiding the Geneva Convention in any way during this war, but think about it: until now, they've been rejecting all claims of war crimes, abuse of civilians etc. We know they are doing these things, but they pretend they don't. Now, the POW parade? If they do this, they won't be even pretending anymore. They'd openly revelling in abuse and terror tactics...

Also, think of what it'd take to get these POWs to take part in such a "parade". They wouldn't be taking part in this willingly... The sources that talk of this "parade" idea also say that Russian special services are already "working" on the POWs to coerce them into taking part. You can imagine what they are doing to them...

[Annaamarth]

A way to more aggressively recruit from remote areas, and possibly forcing some ethnic minorities to do the fighting proper.

More than they already do?  Casualties - or at least casualty lists - seem to be disproportionately dominated by ethnic minorities, probably coaxed into service because those ethnic minorities are the underclass.

https://ridl.io/en/who-is-dying-for-the-russian-world/

Anecdotally it sounds as though the poor, and poorly educated, lower classes are more easily baited into signing contracts they don't understand, while the Russian ethnic group views military service as a trap for 'losers' who didn't know enough to understand how to dodge the draft - or that the draft should be dodged to begin with.

Officers and 'career' military are viewed differently of course, but this ethnic divide is interesting in a few ways.

- In the fight to protect the 'Russian World™', the usage of disposable minorities seems to be ... particularly telling.  Very old-school Imperialist, which seems to be right out of the Russian playbook going back to the Tsarist era.

- The atrocities committed on the group by uneducated conscripts who are, in turns, oppressed, abused, and poorly disciplined could be written off by the (ethnically Russian) high command as the acting out of 'barbarians' - the thought process that these 'inferior peoples' are a case example for the superiority of the Russian World seems an easy leap for ethnostatists to make, along with 'well, that's what Ukraine gets for fighting back.'  Classic abuser 'It's not my fault, I didn't do it, but they deserved it if it did happen.'

- The idea of a culture that glorifies national strength through the military, while simultaneously abusing and disrespecting the military as made up of 'losers' and leaving wounded veterans out to dry - again, anecdotal, but a case example in this tweet - seems like a really irrational dichotomy.  This has shown up in the West - consider Trump calling senator McCain a loser for having been captured and surviving a POW camp and simultaneously looking for military parades for his own glory - and seems like a special flavour of crazy to me.

[Vekseid]

For an example of what I would expect to see going on in minority territories, think of the recruitment intensity the Donbass itself is currently going through. Literal press gangs. Of course, this is only about 30 million people at most to draw from, but they could raise what they need from this population, at least on paper.

I've referenced Russia's strange disrespect of its own military earlier in this thread. It's because Russia is a security state, and as such Russia can't have the men of its military respected. Else, some popular general might unseat them (as Stalin feared). It is really quite something to witness. Kadyrov is something of an anomaly until you realize he and his men are even more pathetic than most of the actual Russian military proper.

[Beorning]

Russian ambassador in Poland was doused with red today, when trying to visit a Soviet cemetery located in Warsaw:

https://notesfrompoland.com/2022/05/09/russian-ambassador-doused-with-red-paint-at-soviet-cemetery-in-warsaw/

It's not entirely clear whether it was intentional or whether he got hit with paint the protesters present were also dousing on themselves.

Question for people observing US politics: what's AOC's stance on the war? I've heard she voted against sanctioning Russian oligarchs?

[Sara Nilsson]

AOC vote against ceasing the assets was merely as it goes against the 4th amendment.

“Oligarchs should pay ... but this vote told POTUS to violate the 4th Amd & seize private property,” AOC wrote on Twitter.

AOC and other progressives have long been concerned about civil forfeiture laws, which have sometimes been used as blunt weapons in the hands of overzealous prosecutors.

Some advocates say those forfeiture rules have disproportionately been used to punish Black and brown suspects in the failed war on drugs.

And if you watched Olivers video on civil forfeiture then you know how grossly it is handled here in the usa, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kEpZWGgJks)

Otherwise she has called for both sanctions and for us to ship weapons to Ukraine.

[gaggedLouise]

AOC vote against ceasing the assets was merely as it goes against the 4th amendment.

And if you watched Olivers video on civil forfeiture then you know how grossly it is handled here in the usa, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kEpZWGgJks)

Otherwise she has called for both sanctions and for us to ship weapons to Ukraine.

Actually I think AOC has a valid point abouf these forfeiture orders against all sorts of people who are claimed to be Russian henchmen, and I had the same gut reaction when I first heard about these moves around two weeks ago. Imagine the reaction from the US if some American businessmen who had made a lot of money through somewhat shoddy and exploitative (but legally protected) business operations in let's say India or South Africa had suddenly got their assets and houses in those countries seized and sold by some ad hoc government order. The outcry would have been heard around the globe... 

Without a proper in-depth inquiry and trial (with the right to appeal), this is little more than legalized theft.

[Vekseid]

That is basically the specific sort of reasoning for it, and it has formal precedent in our Constitution (being able to issue letters of marque). To bust up these iron triangles. Especially those backed by foreign powers.

[stormwyrm]

This is bizarre. It seems that the built-in satellite navigation systems of Russian fighter jets are so poor that they have to use civilian GPS gadgets instead.

https://eurasiantimes.com/su-34-fighter-jet-shockingly-found-with-gps-taped-to-dashboard/?amp

I don't know if it's still possible to turn GPS Selective Availability back on, at least within the region. The new satellites in the GPS constellation launched since 2007 no longer have that capability I think.

[Thufir Hawat]

Good grief, does he think he now think he's a Roman Emperor celebrating a Triumph? Maybe he'll even show up at the head of the parade wearing a toga picta and a crown of laurels! 🤦‍♂️

Not manly enough for him.

[Forsaken]

Being half Ukrainian it is really weird seeing the ancestral homeland on the news let alone being invaded. I have never been there but have plenty of relatives over there.

Some of the comments I see a lot in the newspapers from readers is "Why don't they just surrender". It is something that a lot of Westerner's don't understand. Ukraine was once part of the USSR, the Soviets were brutal to every country they entered. Surrendering would not stop their demise in fact it would hasten it.

So Ukraine won't surrender and with Western assistance they are costing Putin a fortune in equipment and soldiers, the latter not so easy and quick to replace. The American's no doubt are enjoying watching the Russians use up all their hardware as well as being able to test their own against the very enemy it was designed to fight.

I have read Putin has blood cancer and if that is true than perhaps if he passes someone below him will stop the madness or the Russian Oligarch's will just depose him as all the sanctions are hurting Russia economically.

Putin claims Ukraine was a threat if it joined NATO but Ukraine was never a threat even if NATO accepted them. What he is achieving here is that Finland and Sweden are looking to join NATO, even the Swiss are re-thinking their neutrality. Russia will be weakened and Ukraine will re-build with a massive military just like China did after WW2 as they never wanted to be at the mercy of a greater power again.

Putin has achieved the very opposite of what he is claiming to be worried about.

I'll post this link as some context, it's about the famine (Holodmor) in Ukraine in the 30's that killed millions of Ukrainians, some say it was done on purpose to oppress them. The point is that this event is a form inter-generational trauma for Ukrainians. Even someone like myself knows about it, it gets handed down generation to generation. Russia is not well liked and it provides insight into why surrender just isn't an option. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor

[gaggedLouise]

That is basically the specific sort of reasoning for it, and it has formal precedent in our Constitution (being able to issue letters of marque). To bust up these iron triangles. Especially those backed by foreign powers.

The US is expressly claiming not to be at war with Russia, and many of the people whose assets Chuck Schumer has in his sights have not been tried for anything, neither in the US nor in Europe.  I think it's highly far-fetched of the US to use methods from the age of buccaneering to wield economic war on anyone and everyone they judge to be "involved with the Kremlin" just because these people have been put on a list by some guys in a government office using covert and non-divulged intelligence - and doing it on behalf of another country.

I know exactly how the US media would have responded if this were done to Americans in Asia, but sometimes US laws contain some rather odd provisions.

What is also disturbing about this, these kinds of ad hoc methods to chase down money, information or "guulty people" tend to be cast wider and wider and used with less and less proper control, as a conflict wears on.

[gaggedLouise]

Forgot to add this link to the original pitch: https://tinyurl.com/3pvxt595  (from the Guardian's liveUkraine-related news feed, May 1)

[Vekseid]

The relevant comparison would be Russians seizing foreign assets, I believe.

My servers have been under targeted attack by Russians since February 18th, after a month of probing. Their cyberattacks are almost as sophisticated as their conventional military operations.

That no formal declaration of war exists means nothing more than a tacit agreement to avoid escalating the sorts of weapons used, for generally well understood reasons. We aren't 'at war', but we are definitely in conflict.

Even ignoring that, I think there is a distinction between asset forfeiture of petty cash and primary housing, and detached assets representing what amounts to the life's labor of a person. Sometimes hundreds to even thousands of lives worth of labor. At some point there probably should be a requirement to justify these sorts of things.

[Annaamarth]

Their cyberattacks are almost as sophisticated as their conventional military operations.

... Shade thrown? Seems subtle.  Similar to a brick through a window, wrapped in dynamite.

But yeah, since Russia has apparently maintained a practice of maintaining state-sanctioned attacks against the economic, democratic and academic institutions of other nations since the 90s, I don't feel particularly bad about the return of a letter-of-marque practice.

If I did, I would be truly hypocritical - I approve of the economic sanctions levied against Russia, even knowing that the people who will suffer the most from those sanctions are the civilians, particularly the economically depressed.  The reason for that approval comes down to my holistic understanding of economics - you cannot inhibit or punish a nation without damaging the economy for the people, and the people most at-risk will be the vulnerable.  This impact on the vulnerable sucks.

It sucks much more that a poorly disciplined, violent military has chosen to violate the sovereignty of a foreign nation and subject it's citizens to massed bombardment, pillage and rape, after having instituted a project to developed a pro-Russian insurgency that seems to have been funded by black money that was mostly pocketed by FSB apparatchiks - please note current events about the FSB being out and the GRU being in.

[Azuresun]

... Shade thrown? Seems subtle.  Similar to a brick through a window, wrapped in dynamite.

But yeah, since Russia has apparently maintained a practice of maintaining state-sanctioned attacks against the economic, democratic and academic institutions of other nations since the 90s, I don't feel particularly bad about the return of a letter-of-marque practice.

If I did, I would be truly hypocritical - I approve of the economic sanctions levied against Russia, even knowing that the people who will suffer the most from those sanctions are the civilians, particularly the economically depressed.  The reason for that approval comes down to my holistic understanding of economics - you cannot inhibit or punish a nation without damaging the economy for the people, and the people most at-risk will be the vulnerable.  This impact on the vulnerable sucks.

It sucks much more that a poorly disciplined, violent military has chosen to violate the sovereignty of a foreign nation and subject it's citizens to massed bombardment, pillage and rape, after having instituted a project to developed a pro-Russian insurgency that seems to have been funded by black money that was mostly pocketed by FSB apparatchiks - please note current events about the FSB being out and the GRU being in.

On a personal and vindictive level, I'll admit it feels very good to see Russia getting a taste of ther own medicine after so many years of bullying, weaponised disinformation and blatant interference in the governments of other countries (and I am absolutely including the UK and US in this--Brexit was entirely due to Putin). A bursting boil is ugly, but it's better than watching as the corruption builds. For so long it seemed like all we could do was just stand there and watch as Putin got away with it every time.

[Saria]

But yeah, since Russia has apparently maintained a practice of maintaining state-sanctioned attacks against the economic, democratic and academic institutions of other nations since the 90s, I don't feel particularly bad about the return of a letter-of-marque practice.

Curious whether that stance applies to any country that has engaged in attacks against the economic, democratic, and academic institutions of other nations for a whole hell of a lot longer than just since the 1990s. ~whistles “The Stars and Stripes Forever”~

[Vekseid]

If you want to discuss America's sins, make a new thread. Ukraine is not responsible for the actions of the United States, this is not the thread for it.

[Forsaken]

Russia has always been simultaneously too strong, and too weak.  From its perspective it's pretty much a landlocked country surrounded by powers that are at best neutral, at worst hostile.  Also their political outlook is founded on paranoia and enemies, internal enemies, external enemies, class enemies, ideological enemies... Plus with Putin and Co we have the last of the Cold-War warrior mindset.  So they do feel threatened by NATO expansion, but forget that it is their behaviour, both past and present, that drives it.  Finland is a prime example, decades of careful neutrality, just what Russia likes, a neutral buffer state between them and the West.  Now Finland is expected to apply for NATO membership and all thanks to Putin's actions.

The only reason Russia even became a Superpower was because of captured German scientists and technology. Not to mention they had a lot of support from The West during WW2 to build up their manufacturing for the war effort.

Russian military doctrine is just weight of numbers and keep pushing at any cost. That is why Russia ended up taking Berlin during WW2. The Brits and American's knew it would be costly to keep going and the USSR was happy to take the losses. It is also why Japan had atomic bombs dropped on them because again the American's knew it would be costly to invade Japan and the USSR had no issues with that were happy to invade if need be.

We are seeing the same now in Ukraine. Russia keeps pushing but there is little rhyme or reason behind it and because they don't trust their soldiers they are losing a lot of Generals. Normally General's wouldn't be so close to the fighting but when you micromanage you can't be far from your workers because they will always want and need guidance. The West is the opposite in terms of their military. Soldiers are encouraged and expected to make decisions in the field. To adapt.

In terms of Sweden, Finland and even the Swiss I feel like if pushed, they would always take the side of NATO anyway. It is all good being neutral but when you have someone like Putin, you can't expect to just be left alone. Formal alliances or not, if Russia or anyone else invaded Europe, you could expect at least Sweden and Finland to take action. No point in being neutral if all your friendly neighbours are being taken over by hostile forces.

Putin has ensured a stronger Ukraine and a stronger NATO while weakening Russia.