Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[Storr]

I wonder at what point, if ever, the current war starts to be seen similar to Afghanistan in the Russian public consciousness.

Oh nope, it will be far worse. Ukraine (literally meaning "the border regions") holds such a central place in the Russian consciousness, that its loss would provoke a collective identity crisis. Afghanistan? That's a faraway land full of weird, bearded people. The Kievian Rus' was the spiritual ancestor of Rus', and a Russia that permanently lost it would be unworthy of its name.

That's why Putin has been claiming that the West wants to use Ukraine to destroy Russia - he's not wrong that a Russia that lost its spiritual heartland and its "border regions" in a war would face an existential crisis.

The fact that Ukraine holds such a central place in the Russian consciousness and collective identity is what caused me to add "if ever" after initially posting.

[nicholas.slaydon]

I wonder at what point, if ever, the current war starts to be seen similar to Afghanistan in the Russian public consciousness.

Oh nope, it will be far worse. Ukraine (literally meaning "the border regions") holds such a central place in the Russian consciousness, that its loss would provoke a collective identity crisis. Afghanistan? That's a faraway land full of weird, bearded people. The Kievian Rus' was the spiritual ancestor of Rus', and a Russia that permanently lost it would be unworthy of its name.

That's why Putin has been claiming that the West wants to use Ukraine to destroy Russia - he's not wrong that a Russia that lost its spiritual heartland and its "border regions" in a war would face an existential crisis.

2952-0-0 in 1945:
Oh nope, it will be far worse. Österreich (literally meaning eastern realm) holds such a central place in the German consciousness, that its loss would provoke a collective identity crisis. Bohemia? Sudetenland? That's a far away land full of weird, bearded people. The Austrian Empire was the spiritual ancestor of Germany, and a Germany that permanently lost it would be unworthy of its name.

That is why Hitler is claiming that the West wants to destroy Germany and separate Austria - he's not wrong that a Germany that lost its spiritual heartland and its "eastern realm" in a war would face an existential crisis.

[Storr]

https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1665131737922371584?s=20

https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1665082758803206144?s=20

[Storr]

I found this letter interesting, since despite living in a country with an independent media and freedom of speech, this guy can't help but make a false equivalency between Russia and "the West" in terms of responsibility for the "senseless killing":

"Pavel
30 years old, Germany

I don’t support the war, but I decided to write a response, because people who try to find justifications for the war are being equated with those who support it.

I’m angry at both sides of the conflict. I’m angry at Russia because it started a stupid, bloodthirsty war that leads to senseless killing every day. I’m angry at the countries that support Ukraine because they’re not insisting on an immediate cessation of hostilities, on an end to the senseless killing. Instead, they’re supplying the country with weapons, understanding all the while that it’s only increasing the number of victims."

https://twitter.com/DrJadeMcGlynn/status/1665070006655131648?s=20

[PSOL]

There’s going to be a civil war in russia if they fail to take Kharkov at Minimum in the next two years.

[2952-0-0]

2952-0-0 in 1945:
Oh nope, it will be far worse. Österreich (literally meaning eastern realm) holds such a central place in the German consciousness, that its loss would provoke a collective identity crisis. Bohemia? Sudetenland? That's a far away land full of weird, bearded people. The Austrian Empire was the spiritual ancestor of Germany, and a Germany that permanently lost it would be unworthy of its name.

That is why Hitler is claiming that the West wants to destroy Germany and separate Austria - he's not wrong that a Germany that lost its spiritual heartland and its "eastern realm" in a war would face an existential crisis.

The difference is that the Allies occupied Germany and remade it according to their interests. No one is interested in doing so for Russia.

[AndyHogan14]

There’s going to be a civil war in russia if they fail to take Kharkov at Minimum in the next two years.

Then there will be a civil war...the odds of them being able to take the rest of Donetsk Oblast are slim but Kharkiv? Lol.

It's not as fantastical as those that say that they will still end up taking Odesa (Ukraine has a better chance of taking Moscow than the Russians have of taking Odesa), but Kharkiv is a fantasy as well. If they couldn't get it in the opening hours of the war when the ZSU was scrambling, they have no chance now. Hell, they couldn't even put it under siege to start the war!

[Oleg 🇰🇿🤝🇺🇦]

Oh nope, it will be far worse. Ukraine (literally meaning "the border regions") holds such a central place in the Russian consciousness, that its loss would provoke a collective identity crisis. Afghanistan? That's a faraway land full of weird, bearded people. The Kievian Rus' was the spiritual ancestor of Rus', and a Russia that permanently lost it would be unworthy of its name.

That's why Putin has been claiming that the West wants to use Ukraine to destroy Russia - he's not wrong that a Russia that lost its spiritual heartland and its "border regions" in a war would face an existential crisis.

You are completely right about this imperial attitude of Russians towards Ukraine, but etymologically this name does not mean the border region of Russia, which simply did not exist before Peter I, but the border region of Kievan Rus. And in fact, Moscovia was one of the border regions of Kievan Rus, and not vice versa.

[Oleg 🇰🇿🤝🇺🇦]

I found this letter interesting, since despite living in a country with an independent media and freedom of speech, this guy can't help but make a false equivalency between Russia and "the West" in terms of responsibility for the "senseless killing":

"Pavel
30 years old, Germany

I don’t support the war, but I decided to write a response, because people who try to find justifications for the war are being equated with those who support it.

I’m angry at both sides of the conflict. I’m angry at Russia because it started a stupid, bloodthirsty war that leads to senseless killing every day. I’m angry at the countries that support Ukraine because they’re not insisting on an immediate cessation of hostilities, on an end to the senseless killing. Instead, they’re supplying the country with weapons, understanding all the while that it’s only increasing the number of victims."

https://twitter.com/DrJadeMcGlynn/status/1665070006655131648?s=20

A mindset that has been so destroyed that it is ready to tie together absolutely opposite things is fertile ground for such an insanely eclectic ideology as fascism.

[Hindsight was 2020]

https://twitter.com/geopoliticalgu1/status/1665164154670333952?s=12

[NOVA Green]

15,000 Soviet soldiers were killed (official Kremlin number) in the Soviet War in Afghanistan.

You wouldn't be allowed to make a song like this in Russia today:

I wonder at what point, if ever, the current war starts to be seen similar to Afghanistan in the Russian public consciousness.

 

I have long pondered that same question, and actually posted a similar Russian Anti-Afghan War video a year or so back.

Although the Russian Invasion & Occupation of Ukraine 2.0 is still in its early days, compared and contrasted with the much longer Russian Invasion and Occupation of Afghanistan, there are a couple key items which distinguish these two different elective Wars of choice:

1.) The sheer length of the Russian Involvement in Afghanistan led to an extremely vocal political movement of Russian Mothers putting pressure on local Soviet authorities to challenge the fundamental nature of the mission.

2.) Russian media was much more open to alternative perspectives regarding the War in Afghanistan in the latter days of the Soviet Union.

Hence the fact that we have music videos and books and journalists who extensively described what was actually "going down" in Afghanistan.

3.) The Russian Media has actually become even more centralized controlled by the official state regime, vs more independent outlets allowed to flourish early on before the Soviet Union collapsed, as a direct result of internal contradictions, including not only the myth that the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc could out produced the West in terms of MFG capability.

Lack of computerization and automation of Factories, even within one of the largest GDP producers in the World (East Germany), effectively created a bit of a crisis of confidence among the elites when it came to the superiority of the Centrally Planned Economic Model, which arguably would have been one of the strongest arguments for the Eastern Bloc.

4.) Most of the former Republics of the Soviet Union have moved well on from the systems of the past.

Naturally the Baltic Republics would go their own way...

Central Asian Republics start to become even more complicated, but yet even there Russia can't really hold onto control, despite their "peace keeping operation" in kazakhstan, as exhibited by the forced attendance from Putin a Month or so back for May Day or May 9th Celebrations...

Down in the Caucus region, Russia doesn't have tons of friends, regardless of the GVT in power in Georgia. War with Armenia and Azerbaijan, Russia looks powerless.

Hell... if Ukraine didn't want a divorce from Russia in '14, pretty clear that even within the Russian speaking communities of Central, Southern, and Eastern Ukraine, that people are totally wanting to move on.

Putin has consistently tried to rope Belarus into the War, but even there the concept of somehow a "pure ethnic Russian Slavic" state, appears not to be something which excites the population.

Instead Belarus and Ukrainian Border Guards are arguing about Borsch recipes...

[Hindsight was 2020]

15,000 Soviet soldiers were killed (official Kremlin number) in the Soviet War in Afghanistan.

You wouldn't be allowed to make a song like this in Russia today:

I wonder at what point, if ever, the current war starts to be seen similar to Afghanistan in the Russian public consciousness.

 

I have long pondered that same question, and actually posted a similar Russian Anti-Afghan War video a year or so back.

Although the Russian Invasion & Occupation of Ukraine 2.0 is still in its early days, compared and contrasted with the much longer Russian Invasion and Occupation of Afghanistan, there are a couple key items which distinguish these two different elective Wars of choice:

1.) The sheer length of the Russian Involvement in Afghanistan led to an extremely vocal political movement of Russian Mothers putting pressure on local Soviet authorities to challenge the fundamental nature of the mission.

2.) Russian media was much more open to alternative perspectives regarding the War in Afghanistan in the latter days of the Soviet Union.

Hence the fact that we have music videos and books and journalists who extensively described what was actually "going down" in Afghanistan.

3.) The Russian Media has actually become even more centralized controlled by the official state regime, vs more independent outlets allowed to flourish early on before the Soviet Union collapsed, as a direct result of internal contradictions, including not only the myth that the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc could out produced the West in terms of MFG capability.

Lack of computerization and automation of Factories, even within one of the largest GDP producers in the World (East Germany), effectively created a bit of a crisis of confidence among the elites when it came to the superiority of the Centrally Planned Economic Model, which arguably would have been one of the strongest arguments for the Eastern Bloc.

4.) Most of the former Republics of the Soviet Union have moved well on from the systems of the past.

Naturally the Baltic Republics would go their own way...

Central Asian Republics start to become even more complicated, but yet even there Russia can't really hold onto control, despite their "peace keeping operation" in kazakhstan, as exhibited by the forced attendance from Putin a Month or so back for May Day or May 9th Celebrations...

Down in the Caucus region, Russia doesn't have tons of friends, regardless of the GVT in power in Georgia. War with Armenia and Azerbaijan, Russia looks powerless.

Hell... if Ukraine didn't want a divorce from Russia in '14, pretty clear that even within the Russian speaking communities of Central, Southern, and Eastern Ukraine, that people are totally wanting to move on.

Putin has consistently tried to rope Belarus into the War, but even there the concept of somehow a "pure ethnic Russian Slavic" state, appears not to be something which excites the population.

Instead Belarus and Ukrainian Border Guards are arguing about Borsch recipes...

Even with all that it does boggle the mind a bit with the disturbing high level of tolerance for the causalities the Russian people have right now. 60k Americans died over a decade plus in Nam and it traumatized/defined an entire generation but 200k dead in little over a year and Putin has enjoyed even for a totalitarian regime little domestic pushback up until the recent Wagner complaining and the Free Russia Legion raids

[PSOL]

There’s going to be a civil war in russia if they fail to take Kharkov at Minimum in the next two years.

Then there will be a civil war...the odds of them being able to take the rest of Donetsk Oblast are slim but Kharkiv? Lol.

It's not as fantastical as those that say that they will still end up taking Odesa (Ukraine has a better chance of taking Moscow than the Russians have of taking Odesa), but Kharkiv is a fantasy as well. If they couldn't get it in the opening hours of the war when the ZSU was scrambling, they have no chance now. Hell, they couldn't even put it under siege to start the war!

Underestimate the Russians at your own peril

[pppolitics]

https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1665156432214228998

[AndyHogan14]

https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1665156432214228998

Good. It is about time the Russian people have started to get a taste of their own medicine. Maybe if they have had to deal with even a fraction of what Ukraine has had to deal with from the beginning, Putin would have gotten the Mussolini treatment by now.

There’s going to be a civil war in russia if they fail to take Kharkov at Minimum in the next two years.

Then there will be a civil war...the odds of them being able to take the rest of Donetsk Oblast are slim but Kharkiv? Lol.

It's not as fantastical as those that say that they will still end up taking Odesa (Ukraine has a better chance of taking Moscow than the Russians have of taking Odesa), but Kharkiv is a fantasy as well. If they couldn't get it in the opening hours of the war when the ZSU was scrambling, they have no chance now. Hell, they couldn't even put it under siege to start the war!

Underestimate the Russians at your own peril

[CumbrianLefty]

I wonder at what point, if ever, the current war starts to be seen similar to Afghanistan in the Russian public consciousness.

Oh nope, it will be far worse. Ukraine (literally meaning "the border regions") holds such a central place in the Russian consciousness, that its loss would provoke a collective identity crisis. Afghanistan? That's a faraway land full of weird, bearded people. The Kievian Rus' was the spiritual ancestor of Rus', and a Russia that permanently lost it would be unworthy of its name.

That's why Putin has been claiming that the West wants to use Ukraine to destroy Russia - he's not wrong that a Russia that lost its spiritual heartland and its "border regions" in a war would face an existential crisis.

2952-0-0 in 1945:
Oh nope, it will be far worse. Österreich (literally meaning eastern realm) holds such a central place in the German consciousness, that its loss would provoke a collective identity crisis. Bohemia? Sudetenland? That's a far away land full of weird, bearded people. The Austrian Empire was the spiritual ancestor of Germany, and a Germany that permanently lost it would be unworthy of its name.

That is why Hitler is claiming that the West wants to destroy Germany and separate Austria - he's not wrong that a Germany that lost its spiritual heartland and its "eastern realm" in a war would face an existential crisis.

East Prussia is arguably an even better parallel here.

[Hindsight was 2020]

https://twitter.com/azovsouth/status/1665239062733631488?s=12
https://twitter.com/warfrontline/status/1665329728222384130?s=12

[Hindsight was 2020]

Also interesting developments in the Bilhorod People’s Republic
https://twitter.com/intermarium24/status/1665332321204019200?s=12
https://twitter.com/noelreports/status/1665337677195911168?s=12

[Hindsight was 2020]

https://twitter.com/phillipspobrien/status/1665454573593538561?s=12

[Woody]

https://twitter.com/phillipspobrien/status/1665454573593538561?s=12

source: my ass

[Woody]

https://twitter.com/witte_sergei/status/1665456158222450690?cxt=HHwWhICwvanj8Zwu...
https://twitter.com/squatsons/status/1665400766562025472?cxt=HHwWgIC-uY3L2JwuAAA...
https://twitter.com/squatsons/status/1665400773692522496

[Hindsight was 2020]

Lol so you mock me citing Philips OBrien one of the better respected sources on the war development and proceed to post a link from Big “Guys I’m hearing the Kharkiv counterattack has been a disaster for Ukraine” Serge and NAFO punching bag squatsons? 😂😭

[Woody]

Lol so you mock me citing Philips OBrien one of the better respected sources on the war development and proceed to post a link from Big “Guys I’m hearing the Kharkiv counterattack has been a disaster for Ukraine” Serge and NAFO punching bag squatsons? 😂😭

What?? By who? Literally all the OSINT Ukrainian-stan guys/REAL service members always trash-talk that asshole when he comes up, because he carelessly posts crap all the time and flat out lies. He also clickbaits to the highest degree, it's mostly targeted towards reddit users and by-passers. I don't get how you still don't realize that after posting dozens of his unverified, hyperbole posts. It's actually insanity. Say what you want about me, but I always try to put some stock into what I post.

And that Zaluzhny thing I never claimed he was dead, I believed he was wounded, which was reasonable thing to assume at the time, even then I never said or implied it was a word of fact. Really, stop being a NAFO cringelord.

Doesn't matter what Ayden himself thinks. I care about the pictures which is worth a thousand more than some guy who constantly lies post, after post, after post.

[certified hummus supporter 🇵🇸🤝🇺🇸🤝🇺🇦]

What I still find interesting is how compucomp STILL persists on reccing pretty much every single remotely pro-Russian post here in this megathread. In fact, I don't think I can recall him EVER reccing a pro-Ukrainian post IIRC. Reflexive hatred of the West is hell of a drug.

[Hindsight was 2020]

You put stock into what you post comrade? 😂 “Guys this Kherson campaign is a disaster Ukraine won’t be able to take the city” *Ukraine takes it a week later* “Guys Big Serge is saying Russia is really dug into Lyman”*Ukraine retakes Lyman a few days later* “Guys that video of Zaluzhnyi is totally prerecorded” * Zaluzhnyi a few days later posts a second video specifically to mock people like you*